At first glance, Hopkins’s sonnet is merely a verbal dump of his own depressing feelings; however, in my interpretation, Hopkins is attempting to teach a pessimistic lesson to humanity. 

In accordance with the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, the poem takes a turn between the octave and the sestet. In the octave, Hopkins portrays his own feelings of unavoidable and intense despair while calling out for figures like Mary, God, and “Fury” (7) to help. The poem continues with the same tone through the sestet, but shifts into a commentary on society. He argues that people experience immense amount of pain by metaphorically comparing the mind to a range of mountains with never ending cliffs we are just constantly hanging off of, and our “Durance” (12) can’t handle those anguishes. In the last two lines, “Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all / Life death does end and each day dies with sleep”, Hopkins makes his last argument– society cannot function without the comfort of mortality and termination. We survive because we know eventually we will die. 

This poem is morbid and hard to read, not just because of the empathy we as readers feel for the hopelessness and despair that Hopkins illustrates, but for the existentialist viewpoint that nothing matters because we all just work to die and there is no greater purpose in life. Additionally, it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that Hopkins frames this as a form of comfort– that life is so depressing that we should be grateful that it ends; rather than scared of it.