'The Fell of Dark' (poem) written by Gerard Manley Hopkins

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night! What sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light's delay.


With witness I speak this. But where I say

Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament 

Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away.


I am gall, I am heartburn, God's most deep decree 

Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;

Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.


Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see 

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be 

As i am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

Comments