Daily Email

Friday, July 26, 2013

Poem: "Gods' Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (1918)

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.

2 comments:

  1. I am so fond of this poem. What a gift with words. Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He left us with a great legacy. Poor man was misunderstood in his day.

      Delete