Victorians

"Carrion Comfort"

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast
on thee;
Not untwist--slack they may be--these last strands
of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose
not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou
rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb
against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones?
and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic
to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer
and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed
the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole
joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-
handling flung me, foot trod
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it
each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with
(my God!) my God.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins.

That's why. Now I remember.