Poems for study » I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark » Language and tone in I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark
Quiet misery
This is a most uncomfortable sonnet. There are moments of softness, as in ‘To dearest him that lives alas! away’, where the interjection of ‘alas!’ combined with ‘dearest’ and ‘away’ softens the desolation. But such moments are rare.
There is no great sense of drama:
- the tone is understated, adding, in a strange way, to its misery
- the language is very monosyllabic (as with a number of the terrible sonnets): the first line is the most obvious example
- alliteration is muted
- there is little repetition or parallelism.
All this adds to the quiet misery of the poem.
- Does any of the alliteration strike you in reading the poem?
- Work out the percentage of monosyllabic words to polysyllabic ones.
- Why does Hopkins use such a high proportion, do you think
- What effect does it have?
- Do you notice an absence of harsh consonant sounds?
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
Bookmark this page with: