Poem 41. NO WORST, THERE IS NONE.
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
**
5Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling-ering!
Let me be fell: force I must be brief’.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
Hold them cheap
10May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep.
Here! creep,Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
Gerard M. Hopkins, an English priest, wrote these words in the nineteenth century. “Hold them cheap May who ne’er hung there”. Hopkins knew what he was talking about.
Take a look at the lines - “Comforter, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?”
To suggest that all we who suffer with this illness need to do is:
“If people would just allow themselves to get a proper amount of sleep, manage their diets, exercize more, and try to get rid of some of the stressful things in their lives, they would be a lot better off.”
Would we say this to a cancer patient? I pray to God that the poster never has to endure what I endure and have endured. “Hold them cheap May who Ne’er hung there”.
Illness is illness. Medicine is medicine. There is no shame nor sin in taking medicine for one’s illness.
