Gerard Manley Hopkins

After reading the works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, I found myself being drawn back to the poem I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day because of the imagery that Hopkins uses in describing the life that he is living. When I read the line “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” the image of someone going to sleep at night, dying in their sleep, and not returning to the world immediately came to mind. I interpreted this line to be the way that one would feel if he or she had simply gone to sleep one night and never seen the sun again because he or she had left this world. I also took interest in the lines that read

“With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life.”

because I feel that every hour of our lives is somehow important if for no other reason than all of the hours combined make up the years that in turn, make up our lives. I do find this poem to be a bit strange because of the language that is used, which I find difficult to grasp and also because of some of the punctuation that Hopkins uses such as an exclamation point that I found somewhat out of place. As I read the end of the poem I thought of someone who was disappointed with the way that his or her life had turned out and they were comparing their situation to someone in Hell. I found the end to be difficult to picture in my mind, but overall I really did enjoy reading the poem because it is a beautifully written piece of literature.