God’s Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
[…] in Thee.” It brings a rush of associations reminding me of Psalm 139 and Matthew 10:29 and Gerard Manley Hopkins’ line about the Holy Ghost brooding over the bent world with ah! bright […]
[…] fortunate we are to live in such a world as this, and each of those silhouettes a child of […]
[…] We shared this poem at my mother’s memorial service, along with God’s Grandeur. […]