Hi all,

I will sometimes post a poem to proofread. If you see any mistakes (also in comparison with other copies, preferably from books), please let me know. If two people told me they read it and didn't find any, I will update the database.

This one I have modified a bit from the database.

Carrion Comfort
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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.

Some few suggested changes below (author-suggested stress marks & italics):


Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man
In me ór, 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 bruisèd 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 whóm though? The héro whose héaven-handling flúng me, fóot tród
Me? or mé that fóught him? O which one? is it eách one? That níght, that yéar
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.


Are the stress marks meaningful? In the interests of the author's 'sprung rhythm', probably so. Much like capitalizing Despair, to show it personifies the carrion comfort, and is a noun instead of a verb. Less clear is how the word rude can be used as a verb.

thanks, I replaced it.

SOD doesn't give rude as a verb, only adjective.

From COD
rude // adj.
1 (of a person, remark, etc.) impolite or offensive.
2 roughly made or done; lacking subtlety or accuracy (a rude plough).
3 a primitive or unsophisticated (rude simplicity). b archaic uneducated.
4 abrupt, sudden, startling, violent (a rude awakening; a rude reminder).
5 colloq. indecent, lewd (a rude joke).
6 esp. Brit. vigorous or hearty (rude health).

I only have the dead tree SOD and find it too heavy to scan.

Here is Bartleby's version of the poem:


NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, 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 bruisèd 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, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
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.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems that our latest version has a couple of glitches not present here. Most notably the lack of italics around "cry I can no more." and the wrap around on the penultimate line.


Les

Possibly a (mis)use of poetic license to obtain the necessary (sonnet) scansion?

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock?

That is, why would you so rudely rock your right foot across my body?

Surely 'rude' is used here only as an adjective qualifying the subject pronoun 'thou' [where repeated]. The verb is 'rock'.

Hah? Ya lost me.

Why would such a rude thing as you (carrion comfort) rock ... ?

Which reminds me of a new word I learned this week - postpositive. Heretofore, I had always used the word inversion to describe such a concept.

[tinyurl.com]

I wonder how that differs from anastrophe and/or hyperbaton.

Great word!

'thou terrible' is another example nearby.

I understand 'rude' here in sense number 4 on Linda's list.

Query the grammar and meaning of 'right'. The vocabulary and syntax are too strained and twisted to be 100% sure. It probably is an adjective as you have taken it to be - but does it mean right as opposed to left (if so, why?) or some other meaning of right. Depending on the meaning of 'wring-world' (also not clear to me) 'right' could conceivably be a verb in the sense of setting upright something capsized, in which case one needs to infer an omitted 'and' or comma before 'foot'.

GMH has created convolutions worthy of two pythons mating.

This comment is off task, apologies, but is a bit of Hopkins info I thought was interesting. Apparently he wanted all his poems destroyed except for three early ones, I think the three are For a Picture of St. Dorothea,
Heaven--Haven and The Habit of Perfection. Robert Bridges was responsible for getting the poetry published, all posthumously.

Interesting, and news to me. I wonder why those were acceptable, but others not:

<[www.dundee.ac.uk]>

Strange meter on Heaven-Haven - 3,3,5,3 in abba stanzas.

Still, if he wanted them destroyed, surely he could have done so personally.

See also <[www.bartleby.com]>

Hey, I see the software is now putting brackets (and including the angle brackets) in the links. Lemme try one without the angles to see if just the link itself will suffice now.

[tinyurl.com]

There are several typos, mostly run together words, in this one:

[www.emule.com]

Les

thanks. I will make a note of it, but at the moment, I can't access the database. Not until all problems are solved I think.

Sure are; though given the lugubrious length of the original, and Charlotte Bronte's closing admonition 'let us strive to rally mirth', the typo gremlin deserves credit for trying to spark some light with touches such as:

  She yonder sata kind of day
  Lit upwhat seems so gloomy now

and

  Longlong her wandering steps delayed

Having consulted my SOED, I'm uncertain whether the gremlin or CB wrote:

  Clutched in his desperate gripe


But surely, Les, this post of yours was worthy of a new 'Mementos' thread.





Edited 2 times. Last edit at 09/18/05 11:08PM by IanB.

Desi, the poem "October" by Robert Frost has a couple of typos. There is a link to it in the Poem of the Day thread.


Les