Editing Gerard Manley Hopkins (section)

==="The sonnets of desolation"===
According to [[John Bayley (writer)|John Bayley]], "All his life Hopkins was haunted by the sense of personal bankruptcy and impotence, the straining of 'time's eunuch' with no more to 'spend'&nbsp;...", a sense of inadequacy, graphically expressed in his last sonnets.<ref>{{Cite journal| url = http://www.lrb.co.uk/v13/n08/john-bayley/pork-chops| title = Pork Chops {{!}} Review: ''Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life'' by Robert Bernard Martin| journal = [[London Review of Books]]| date = 25 April 1991| volume = 13| issue = 8| last1 = Bayley| first1 = John}}</ref> Toward the end of his life, Hopkins suffered several long bouts of depression. His "terrible sonnets" struggle with problems of religious doubt. He described them to Bridges as "[t]he thin gleanings of a long weary while".<ref name=Allbery>{{Cite web| url = http://poems.com/Poets'%20Picks%202012/April_24_Debra_Allbery.html| last = Allbery|first=Debra|title=To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life|website= Poetry Daily|date= April 24, 2012}}</ref>

"Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord" (1889) echoes ''Jeremiah'' 12:1 in asking why the wicked prosper. It reflects the exasperation of a faithful servant who feels he has been neglected, and is addressed to a divine person ("Sir") capable of hearing the complaint, but seemingly unwilling to listen.<ref>{{Cite web| url = https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/hopkins-agonistes| last = Boudway|first=Matthew|title=Hopkins Agonistes|website=Commonweal|date= April 25, 2011}}</ref> Hopkins uses parched roots as a metaphor for despair.

The image of the poet's estrangement from God figures in "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day", in which he describes lying awake before dawn, likening his prayers to "dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away." The opening line recalls Lamentations 3:2: "He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light."

"No Worst, There is None" and "Carrion Comfort" are also counted among the "terrible sonnets".