the pain of finite hearts that yearn.

as a living, breathing human being, i am all too aware of my limitations. i have so many things i want to do, want to accomplish by such-and-such a time; before i get too old, lose my youth, am no longer able to see far into the horizon because the twilight of my life is drawing nearer, let slip opportunities because of priorities.. it's limitless. and yet at the same time, i'm inifitely limited, trapped in the confines of my tangible, flawed, weak human body. i kinda understand why Gerard Manley Hopkins, a 19th century Jesuit priest who wrote poetry, did what he did with regards to his poetry.


allow me to demonstrate with the piece below entitled Carrion Comfort:

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.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoíd thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whóm though? The héro whose héaven-handling flúng me, fóot tród
Me? or mé that fóught him? O whích one? is it eách one? That níght, that yéar
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.



read it out loud, and you will see how odd it is.
grammar rules have been thrown out of the window, the structure of the poem as we know it (i think it's a sonnet we're looking at here) has been twisted out of shape into something quite confusing and unpalatable. what Hopkins has done essentially is to break the usual rules of language that bind us all as human beings in the attempt to express the inexpressible - here, the inexpressible being his profound experience of spiritual desolation. language itself is a construct with neat, orderly rules of grammar that dictate what we can or cannot do in the "proper" usage of language. and because it is precisely so constructed, it is unable to construct a semblence of profound experience within its constrains. infinity cannot be bound by finite constructs.

my whole point of bringing in this whole weird poem and its weird language is in attempt to express some form of the many many things going on in my head - it seems to never stop, unceasingly churning, neverending, - infinite. i don't have that ability to twist language around to express my inexpressibles, and hence find myself having to hijack the theory behind someone else's attempt to explain my own lack of proper phrasing. it's almost pathetic, how limited i am in all that i am.

similarly, i want to love you with everything i have and spend as much time as i can with you each day. it's something that has just come to be, not something that i force or remind myself to do, not like swallowing my vitamins in the morning when i have to make the conscious effort to remind myself to go to the refrigerator, open the pill bottles, and pop them. it's become almost like breathing, sleeping, something that's become natural. as much as i want to do all this, i recognise how bound i am to the chains of my mortal body. so finite, even though sometimes the emotions i feel inside of me seem almost infinite in their intensity and persistence. which brings me to the sad realization that sometimes, loving with every fibre of your being just isn't enough. loving with everything you have (or i have, for that matter), doesn't always guarantee that the one you love is satisfied, happy, appreciative. it doesn't necessarily automatically equate to the one you love realising how much you love him/her because it's everything that you have - because let's face it: we were not born with equal capacities to love. some of us love more, some less. my loving you would include me willing to forgive almost anything precisely because i love you - your loving me may not necessarily result in the same "i will forgive you practically anything" mentality. i have come to accept that that does not mean you do not love me, and that your love is very unfortunately confined by your (and mine, too) too-finite humanity.

it is that realization that is most hurtful, most upsetting, and which ultimately leads to a sense of resignation at the way things just are.


i guess another 19th century poet, Robert Browning (who is the husband of the exceptionally sappy Elizabeth Barrett Browning) knew what he was saying when he wrote Two in the Campagna.

I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O' the wound, since wound must be?

I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul's springs,--your part my part
In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul's warmth,--I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak--
Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?

Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern--
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.