Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather - as skies
Betweenpie mountains - lights a lovely mile."
-G. M. Hopkins
[Let it be noted that I adore Hopkins' disregard for linguistic limitation; why shouldn't "comfortless" be a noun, just as "dark" is? why not make up the word "betweenpie"? (And best, though not present, why not "selve" by forging new words?]
Listened to Sing the Sorrow twice tonight (this morning.) Haven't had such a good cry in such a long time. I looked like this:
I don't feel right unless I look like that.
But anyways. The line to revive me this time was, "Anathema I will remain, forever will remain. From below, in my seclusion, look up to the sky and see paper wings and watch them burn."
Taken out of context, they mean, to me, that I need to stay below, in my seclusion. That I am only me because I am below, in my seclusion, that I am only me when I am below, in my seclusion.
I need to write the art of my seclusion. I need to write alone.
There's just something about non-exposure that is, impossibly, paradoxically, more beautiful than the exposed. There's something achingly perfect about G. M. Hopkins writing to himself and his God only, isolating in sorrow, and making art of that sorrow, by that sorrow, and for that sorrow. There is something beautiful in that longing for happiness, forever unfulfilled, forever unpublished, forever unknown.
Tonight, (this morning,) I have remembered my nineteenth-century soul. Thank the gods of poetry; I am alive and selving.
My dear one, I thank thee for stretching my brain into lingusitic taffy in the name of comprehending Hopkins; He who asks for the stronger self to be kinder to the self that is not so, with words a part of classic english and his own english.
ReplyDeleteI feel I should convey a virtual hug for the catharsis that STS brought to you. However, our man Havok has that effect and rightly so. I know you do not herald sympathy as I do, so I will pass along empathy.
Have you considered the inferred seclusion from the quote? For the man who is the mouthpiece of the group, perhaps, seclusion is not as much underground as it is merely under the stratsosphere which protects us from burning paper wings caught on fire by the rays of sun it absorbs?
Either way, seclusion is a blessed, beautiful thing that contributes to sanity for the more intelligent and tortured among us, especially for writing and when writing the deeper things such as the art of personal seclusion. I am sure of impending, tragic and delicious beauty and would cast a vote for it to be shared, in the blog or in some way less public, if you see fit.
P.S. To further my exploration of your blog, I almost looked up theo-therme, wondering if it was a word relating to a condition related to when something reaches a certain temperature or heated state. Then I saw it in context...I thought you might enjoy the lol that ensued.