God's Grandeur
God's Grandeur
Original Text
The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991): 96. PR 4803 H44A6 1991 Robarts Library
1The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
2 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
3 It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
4Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
5Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
6 And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
7 And wears man's smudge & shares man's smell: the soil
8Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
9And for all this, nature is never spent;
10 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
11And though the last lights off the black West went
12 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
13Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
14 World broods with warm breast & with ah! bright wings.
Publication Start Year
1918
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1996-2000.
Rhyme
Form