Poem: “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (British, 1844-1889)

 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 reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod,

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears  men’s smudge and shares men’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.