God's Grandeur

I have recently been struck again by Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem God's Grandeur. Eugene Peterson uses it as a launching point for his excellent work, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. The imagery is staggering. I post it here for your enjoyment.


God's Grandeur
Gerald Manley Hopkins 1918

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.


While reading Psalm 19 the other day, I could hear Hopkins in the background. I wonder if he received inspiration from this Psalm while writing?

Psalm 19:1
The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.