NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
Birds buildbut not I build; no, but strain, Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine,O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on creation, the passage of time, and a yearning for spiritual nourishment.
In this quote, Gerard Manley Hopkins contrasts the natural instinct of birds to build with his own struggles in producing meaningful work. He expresses a deep longing for divine inspiration and sustenance as he grapples with the challenges of life and creativity, hinting that true creation is a labor that requires both time and a connection to a higher power.
In practice
In a speech about the creative process, one might say, 'As Gerard Manley Hopkins reflects, we often feel like we're not creating enough and yearn for that divine inspiration.'
NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! Oh look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.
Nothing is so beautiful as spring - when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.
For Christ plays in ten thousand places,/ Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/ To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
When you cut into the present the future leaks out.
Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens.... My grandfather would say we're part of something incredibly wonderful - more marvelous than we imagine. My grandfather would say we ought to go out and look at it once in a while so we don't lose our place in it.
In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.
The search for total knowledge starts from the Self and finds its fulfillment in coming back to the Self, finding that everything is the expression of the Self - everything is the expression of my own Self.
I don't believe that in the name of the holiness of the city you have to put barbed wires, machine gun nests, mine pins and everything of that, in the name of the holiness of Jerusalem.
Frege has the merit of ... finding a third assertion by recognising the world of logic which is neither mental nor physical.
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