God’s Grandeur: Poem by Gerald Manly Hopkins

GOD'S GRANDEUR

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 now not wreck his rod
Generations have trodded, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wear man's smudge and share man's smell: the soil.
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod...
O' morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs---
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manly Hopkins
(1844-1899)
Acknowledgement: Ferguson, Salter, Stallwarthy.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry