Thursday, November 04, 2004

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 then now 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.

Gerald Manly Hopkins