Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life”
The speaker in Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sonnet “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life” explores the sense of spiritual, national, and personal estrangement during years in Ireland. Written with the same intensity that characterizes Hopkins’ work, the poem dramatizes exile as both an external condition and an inward trial.
In the octave, the speaker is focusing on separation from family and his country England, and in the sestet, he turns inward to the silence imposed by his vocation, leaving him isolated yet faithful.
Introduction and Text of “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life”
Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was a Jesuit priest as well as a poet, wrote many of his most profound poems during periods of emotional strain and vocational doubt. He wrote “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life” in 1889 during his final years in Ireland; he created a speaker in the poem who is reflecting an acute sense of displacement—geographical, familial, and spiritual.
Although Father Hopkins remained consistently obedient to his religious calling, he often felt alienated from England, misunderstood by authority, and silenced as a poet. This sonnet, however, reveals not rebellion but suffering endured with disciplined faith, unveiling exile as a severe trial for spiritual testing.
As the first of the six “terrible sonnets,” “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life” remains distinctive because its sense of despair is aimed less at abstract spiritual terror and more at everyday human loss—failed relationships, missed vocations, and social estrangement.
However, like the others, it offers little comfort and speaks in a raw, urgent voice. It is unusual in how little it turns to nature or directly to Christ. Instead, it keeps its focus on the speaker’s painful isolation from family, community, and any sense of being useful as a priest.
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear-
y of idle a being but by where wars are rife.
I am in Ireland now; now I am at a thírd
Remove. Not but in all removes I can
Kind love both give and get. Only what word
Wisest my heart breeds dark heaven’s baffling ban
Bars or hell’s spell thwarts. This to hoard unheard,
Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.
Reading
Commentary on “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life”
Father Hopkins’ sonnet is a meditation on exile and silence. The octave emphasizes outward separation—from family, country, and recognition—while the sestet deepens the conflict by revealing an inward blockage: the poet’s inability to speak or be heard.
Octave: “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life”
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear-
y of idle a being but by where wars are rife.
The speaker open the octave with a stark declaration: “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life.” The phrasing is deliberate and emphatic, with “lot” and “life” placed side by side to suggest that estrangement is not incidental but foundational. The speaker does not merely feel like a stranger; seeming a stranger has become the defining pattern of his existence. The verb “lies” suggests fate or destiny, implying that this condition is imposed rather than chosen.
The repetition of “stranger” in the second line—“Among strangers”—reinforces the sense of isolation. The speaker is not simply alone; he is surrounded by others from whom he feels fundamentally divided. This alienation is then specified in personal terms: separation from “Father and mother dear” and from “Brothers and sisters.”
These lines resonate deeply, as Hopkins had consciously embraced a religious vocation at the cost of ordinary familial intimacy. Yet the phrase “are in Christ not near” reveals a crucial nuance. The separation is not merely geographical or emotional but mediated through faith. His family exists “in Christ,” but spiritual unity does not erase physical absence.
Line four intensifies the tension through paradox: “And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.” The “he” here refers unmistakably to Christ, echoing Christ’s own words in the Gospel that he came not to bring peace but a sword.
Christ is simultaneously the speaker’s source of peace and the cause of painful division. This line crystallizes the poem’s central conflict: obedience to God has fractured his earthly attachments.
England emerges next as a figure of longing and betrayal. The speaker personifies the nation as a beloved woman: “England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife / To my creating thought.” England is not merely homeland; it is the imaginative and cultural source of his poetry.
The speaker’s “creating thought” is bound to England’s landscape, language, and traditions. Yet this beloved “wife” refuses to listen. England “would neither hear / Me, were I pleading.” The rejection is imagined even before the plea is made.
Significantly, the speaker then states, “plead nor do I.” Either Pride, humility, or exhaustion restrains him from petitioning for recognition or return. The enjambment underscores weariness: “I wear- / y of idle a being but by where wars are rife.” The broken word “weary” visually enacts fatigue.
The speaker feels useless, idle, unless he is placed where conflict exists. The “wars” here may be literal—cultural and political unrest in Ireland—or spiritual, referring to inner trials. Either way, the octave closes with a man who sees struggle as the only justification for his continued existence.
Throughout the octave, the speaker’s syntax becomes knotted and his clauses have become compressed. This density mirrors his emotional burden. There is no lyric ease, no pastoral consolation. Instead, the octave establishes exile as a lived reality—accepted but not softened.
Sestet: “I am in Ireland now; now I am at a thírd”
I am in Ireland now; now I am at a thírd
Remove. Not but in all removes I can
Kind love both give and get. Only what word
Wisest my heart breeds dark heaven’s baffling ban
Bars or hell’s spell thwarts. This to hoard unheard,
Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.
The sestet shifts from the general condition of estrangement to a precise location: “I am in Ireland now.” The repetition of “now” emphasizes immediacy and finality. Ireland is not a temporary assignment but a present, enduring state.
The speaker then deepens the sense of displacement by calling this “a thírd / Remove.” The word “remove” suggests not travel but distance layered upon distance—England removed from family, and Ireland removed yet again from England.
(Note the acute accent mark over the “i” in third: Hopkins often placed accent marks to indicate a stress that might be passed over in a quick reading. He wanted to assure that his sprung rhythm received its full impact.)
The speaker then immediately qualifies this isolation: “Not but in all removes I can / Kind love both give and get.” Despite exile, he affirms the possibility of charity. This assertion is a theologically critical.
Love is not extinguished by displacement; grace operates even in separation. The line resists self-pity and aligns the speaker’s world view with Jesuit discipline, which demands adaptability and service wherever one is sent.
However, the speaker’s deepest anguish follows: “Only what word / Wisest my heart breeds dark heaven’s baffling ban / Bars or hell’s spell thwarts.” Here the speaker turns inward, focusing not on where he is but on what he cannot do. His “wisest” words—his poetry—are blocked.
Heaven itself seems to be imposing a “ban,” a prohibition that frustrates expression. The phrase “dark heaven” is especially striking. Heaven, normally associated with clarity and illumination, becomes obscure and baffling. The alternative force is equally terrifying: “hell’s spell.” Whether divine silence or demonic interference, the result is the same—his words are thwarted.
This line reveals one of the most painful aspects of the poet’s late life: the sense that his poetic gift, given by God, is simultaneously withheld by God. Silence becomes both command and punishment.
The final couplet intensifies the tragedy: “This to hoard unheard, / Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.” The speaker is forced to “hoard” his words, storing them without release. Even when heard, they are “unheeded.”
The repetition emphasizes futility. The phrase “a lonely began” is deliberately and strangely ungrammatical. “Began” suggests something unfinished, a life or vocation that never reached fulfillment. The speaker is not calling himself a failure, but he is implying that he feel incomplete.
Yet even here, the speaker sees despair as part of his discipline. He is not accusing God; he is only lamenting his lot. The speaker conclude his revelation with witness not rebellion. The speaker is recording his condition faithfully; he trusts that meaning may lie well beyond his own understanding. Although the loneliness is real, he can bear it through obedience.
In the sestet, then, exile becomes interiorized. The outer fact of Ireland gives way to the inner trial of silence. The speaker’s greatest suffering is not being far from England but being cut off from utterance.
For this speaker, this wound is the deepest. Yet the very existence of the poem contradicts the ban it describes. In writing this sonnet, the poet speaks from within silence, transforming isolation into testimony.
Taken together, the octave and sestet reveal a soul suspended between fidelity and desolation. “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life” is not a cry for rescue but a record of endurance.
The speaker/poet accepts exile as part of his vocation, even when it costs him voice, recognition, and comfort. The sonnet stands as one of his most austere achievements—a poem that does not resolve suffering but sanctifies it through truthful speech.
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