[.imgcaption][.smalltext]Artwork by Julian Peters. Used by permission.[.smalltext][.imgcaption]

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
[.poemindent]It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;[.poemindent]
[.poemindent]It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil[.poemindent]
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
[.poemindent]And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;[.poemindent]
[.poemindent]And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil[.poemindent]
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
[.poemindent]There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;[.poemindent]
And though the last lights off the black West went
[.poemindent]Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –[.poemindent]
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
[.poemindent]World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.[.poemindent]

Gerard Manley Hopkins