God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins
God’s Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
You may find it helpful to listen to Richard Austin’s excellent recitation of this poem.
Gentle Steps, Plate 1
Photo taken by Flickr.com user Rich Renomeron
August 16, 2013
Creative Commons License
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.
***
You may be interested to hear and watch this poem as recited by Richard Austin, seen here recording it for his Hopkins poetry CD, Back to Beauty’s Giver.
