As regular readers know, I love the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I tend to think of his poetry as playful. He can leap from image to image showing the uniqueness of each thing and how God is manifest everywhere: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God” or “Glory be to God for dappled things.”
There was, however, a darker side of depression and near despair to him and, much of the time, closer to his broken spirit were probably lines like these:
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my own sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Hopkins died at 44.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Maura 10.08.09 at 6:44 am
Perhaps it is his “brokenness” ( the phraseology of this poem reflects it well) that lets his testement to the glorious beauty of the world around us speak so clearly. Poems like “Glory be to God for dappled things” do not sound trite because they come from a voice that recognizes both pain and beauty.
Few people count Joyce Kilmer a brilliant poet because he did not often express the depth and reality that Hopkins did.
I think at times we are uncomfortable with a God that dwells not only in beauty and light but pierces and is present in the darkness as well.
Eric 10.08.09 at 1:28 pm
Off the point: I have been in Westminster Abbey twice and have felt great joy and warm feelings for the Anglicans to find Hopkins, a Jesuit, honored in Poets’ Corner. Oh, how the world needs so many more of such gestures.
On the point: As a Christian I both want and believe I ought to be always full of praise and thanksgiving and joy, and I have certainly experienced these. As a sick person, I have times of sadness and anxiety and pervasive fatigue. I was told a couple of days ago by an Episcopal priest that these negative feelings are holy. She said to give them to Jesus and He will take them on with His strength and share that strength with me. I am certain that Hopkins’ suffering gave depth to all His poetry. Maura is right that it is someone who has known suffering can genuinely know the glory of God.
Kate 10.14.09 at 10:55 am
Thank you Eric and Maura for your comments. In the last few years I’ve
come to the conclusion that you both have mentioned. I just wish I had
learned this big message sooner!
Kate