When TOF was in high school, he (along with his fellow scholars) was assigned to write a term paper on a selected English writer. Unlike most of the others, the selection in his case was made by Sister. She selected for his edification Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet of whom TOF had not hitherto heard of. (Sister had the firm belief that TOF would one day become a Jesuit, and Hopkins was a Jesuit. In the end, the Jesuits lucked out.)
This was not the poem, but one TOF selected more or less at random for the blog. It is one of several untitled poems, apparently written while Hopkins was suffering from clinical depression, with its accompanying sleeplessness and despair. Like all of Hopkins' poems, it is meant to be read aloud.
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