Page:Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918.djvu/107

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88
FRAGMENTS, &c.

70

To his Watch

Mortal my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart
Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I
Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie
The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?
The telling time our task is; time's some part,
Not all, but we were framed to fail and die—
One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby
Is comfort's carol of all or woe's worst smart.


Field-flown the departed day no morning brings
Saying 'This was yours' with her, but new one, worse.
And then that last and shortest...


71

Strike, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hail
May's beauty massacre and wispèd wild clouds grow
Out on the giant air; tell Summer No,
Bid joy back, have at the harvest, keep Hope pale.