Poetry Friday

I've been wanting to join the crowd that's been posting poetry on Fridays for weeks now, but I keep forgetting it's Friday until it isn't anymore.

This week I remembered, but my three all-time favourite poems are *gasp* not available on the internet. And although I think I know them off by heart, I can't be sure I wouldn't get a word or phrase wrong if I post one from memory. So you'll have to wait until next week for one of those, by which time I will have corrected the sad gap on my bookshelf that whispers, "Fill me with poetry," at me whenever I walk past.

So here is a poem I like a lot, although it's not my favourite. The second verse especially appeals to me.

(Warning: pretty much every poem I am ever likely to post here will be depressing. I love miserable poetry).

No Worst, there is None

Gerard Manley Hopkins

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief’.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.