| Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. |
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| 60. ‘The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less’ |
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| 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: | 5 |
| All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one— | |
| Work which to see scarce so much as begun | |
| Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness. | |
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| Or what is else? There is your world within. | |
| There rid the dragons, root out there the sin. | 10 |
| Your will is law in that small commonweal… | |
| | | See Notes. |
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