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.

            -- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Discussion of this poem with Mike Taubman

April 16th, Friday, 4pm – main lounge