God’s Grandeur

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.

 

3 comments

  1. […] 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 […]

  2. […] fortunate we are to live in such a world as this, and each of those silhouettes a child of […]

  3. […] We shared this poem at my mother’s memorial service, along with God’s Grandeur. […]