I love the opening line of this poem. The use of nightfall as an adjective in the line 'the times are nightfall' make the read stop and attend. What does Hopkins mean to be saying? I also rather like the use of alliteration and Hopkins is a master -- winter, waste, wither and worse!

The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less;
The times are winter, watch, a world undone:
They waste, they wither worse; they as they run
Or bring more or more blazon man’s distress.
And I not help. Nor word now of success:
All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one—
Work which to see scarce so much as begun
Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.

Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal…

Hey, this looks like the kind of down and out poem that I'd post! I like it (not surprisingly). You know what I thought of as I read it? One of Faulkner's characters such as Quentin Compson. The word order is twisted, distorted, just like Quentin's thoughts.

DWill wrote:You know what I thought of as I read it? One of Faulkner's characters such as Quentin Compson. The word order is twisted, distorted, just like Quentin's thoughts.

Nice connection.

This is a poem that is recited at the end of the Washington Christmas Revels each year. Don't know what the Revels are?! Revels are joy. In 1971, John Langstaff founded Revels, Inc., to link the music, dances, and seasonal rituals from an older world to a modern world that needs them. Revels celebrates the seasons and cycles of human life through the arts, the songs and dances, and the stories from traditional cultures. The Christmas Revels welcomes the return of the light.


The Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!