Gerard Manley Hopkins—I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day p778

When first reading this passage I thought that it was about someone who may be in a depressed state. I felt that he was in a mental state where he could not see the good in life—referred to as the “light”— but was continuously in a darkened state of mind. But then the last few lines gave me a second perspective on it:

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse. (lines 13-14)

This made me think of it more as a message to sinners. It seems like a narration of what it would be like for someone who has been doomed to live in hell for eternity. Most people have the image of hell being a place of continuous darkness, where day never seems to come:

“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! (lines 1-3)

These lines made me think of someone who’s “heart” continuously turns from the way that God wants them to be. I think that the fact that Hopkins was a priest would more support my second interpretation of it being more as a caution to live a righteous life in order to avoid eternity in darkness. This passage really seemed like Hopkins was preaching through his writings without referring to scriptures as is traditionally done; but he was able to make it more realistic to have a bigger impact on its readers.