A Poem for Sunday

My aunt's comment (on my last entry) about another Gerard Manley Hopkins poem prompted me to go read that one, called "Spring and Fall," again. It's very beautiful and very, very profound (like Aunt Cathy herself). Then I Googled and read a few other Hopkins poems, some of which I had not read before. (He burned most of his poetry -- maybe even all of his poetry -- when he became a priest, fearing that it was too vain, so his total body of work is not very large. He started writing poetry again at the request of his fellow clergy.)

Then I read this one for the first time in many years, and I thought today being Sunday it would be very appropriate to post it. It's called "God's Grandeur" and it's full of 'sprung rhythm' like "Pied Beauty." Hopkins' poetry is really very modern considering how long ago it was written.

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 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.