Saturday 19 November 2011

I never realised this, but,

Gerard Manley Hopkins once tried to crochet 99 granny squares, and wrote a poem about it! Isn't that amazing? I don't think this poem could have been about anything else, so, no, I don't really think any other interpretation is possible. Spiritual and social alienation versus another round of double crochet in black acrylic? I think not.

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        5
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        10
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.   

68 down. 31 to go. {Flexes fingers which are cramped like Gollum's around the One Ring}.

3 comments:

Emma (GirlAnachronismE) said...

Definitely sounds like that's what it's about XD

Susie said...

I think I'll probably have to write to Notes and Queries.

http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/notesj/about.html

The Gingerbread Lady said...

Oh nooooooo!!!! It's all my fault! I swear, it's like childbirth (no doubt): I truly forgot the horror surrounding the 99 black squares, I really did. I was so happy with the finished project, I just blanked it out.

I'm off to have a glass of guilt wine.