Mortal my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart
Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I
Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie
The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?
The telling time our task is; time’s some part,
Not all, but we were framed to fail and die—
One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby
Is comfort’s carol of all or woe’s worst smart.
Field-flown, the departed day no morning brings
Saying ‘This was yours’ with her, but new one, worse,
And then that last and shortest…
***
Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he served as a Jesuit priest and is remembered for his innovative and interesting verse. Most of his work was unpublished, hence unknown and unappreciated, in his own lifetime, so the literary fame came to Hopkins posthumously.