Spring & Fall by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Tired and Lonely by Dag Hammarskjöld

Tired

And lonely,

So tired

The heart aches.

Meltwater trickles

Down the rocks,

The fingers are numb,

The knees tremble.

It is now,

Now, that you must not give in.

On the path of the others

Are resting places,

Places in the sun

Where they can meet.

But this

Is your path

And it is now,

Now that you must not fail

Weep

If you can, 

Weep,

But do not complain.

The way chose you --

And you must be thankful.








Dr Garcia mentioned the first and last lines of this poem during Levinas class, I looked it up. It made me think of two people. She walks through a dark valley. I don't know why I thought of him; I haven't talked to him in months. But I trust in the universe and in intuition. I sent it to both of them.




Brevity and bluntness of the lines remind one of the slow and pained plodding of one exhausted beyond measure. Her most memorable lines are those that punch straight: Tired / and Lonely / So tired the heart aches. She rings so true, the lines are recognized with a pang of recognition.


An inner revolt accompanies the last lines The way chose you-- / And you must be thankful. To remember that one is human is consoling; we reserve the right to withdraw from hurt. Gratitude radically negates consolation and pain.




It's funny. This is both is and is not a poem of consolation. I recall Alain de Botton's Nietzsche.