Multilingual Translation Workshop 2010

Carrion Comfort

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 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 avoìd 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 f{'o}ught him? O whích one? is it eách one? That níght, that yéar
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

© Gerard Manley Hopkins edited by Catherine Phillips, Oxford University Press 1986