No Worst, There Is None
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Feel bad, and it seems like that you never adapt to that suffering, that it just gets worse, as if the torment you endure grows more vicious in its torture.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
Hopkins was a Jesuit, and much of his earlier poetry celebrated the awesomeness of god through the cool uniqueness of the creations. Poems like As Kingfishers Catch Fire, The Windhover.
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
Herds-long, as in the cries of a herd of cattle.
woe, world sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing-
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."
Fell means cruel, fierce, dire, sinister, deadly. Force is short for perforce, meaning by the force of circumstance, by necessity.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Durance is endurance
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
From "here" through "whirlwind" confuses me. I think that it goes like this - creep under here, this idea, you wretch - a comfort serves in a whirlwind, which is that all life, etc. That is, I think that "here" is "a comfort", that "under" is a preposition that has "here" as its object. Or "a comfort." Of course, "here" could just be some exclamation, "under" an adverb with "creep." I'm open to suggestions on the grammar, but I think that the gist is that your only shitty-ass comfort in the face of the suffering of life is that it'll end.
Posted by mattb at November 20, 2003 03:57 PMWow! I'd never read any Hopkins before. This guy is amazing - and I hear his voice in a lot of what you've written.
Also, the whole 'sprung rhythm' thing is a fascinating concept - it reminds me a lot of Dose One lyrics.
There's something funny going on with audience in the last stanza. Of the frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed mountains of the mind, he says "hold them cheap may who ne'er hung there." It's hard not to read this as depressive thinking - Hopkins was suffering from depression and knew too well of the frightful mountains of the mind - and so you have the classic "no one else knows what that is like", it appears cheap to others who have not experienced it.
But the next line is "Nor does long our small durance deal with that steep or deep." "Our" small durance - so, all of us have the same small tolerance for the frightful mountains of the mind ... well, what happened to the 'who' who ne'er hung there. The tone is now inclusive.
Finally, you've got the imperative "Here! creep, wretch". And I think this is as you say - your comfort against the whirlwind is death. It's interesting that now the audience is the wretch, forced to creep (by the broken rhythm) and also because the comfort offered is pretty meager.
So you go from "the mind has frightful mountains from which other folks don't suffer" to "we all have trouble dealing with this" to "I'll tell you how to deal with it, bitch - we all die." He flips it up on you - the audience is now the sufferer.
It's good stuff.
Posted by: goldtoe on November 23, 2003 03:52 PM