I’m just saying: it takes a talented guy to use a phrase like “the ooze of oil” in a poem about the grandeur of God and make it work. Read on, read on.
God’s Grandeur
Gerard Manley HopkinsThe 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.
You like? Want to read more? The entire text of Hopkins’ Poems is available online at Bartleby. I, myself, am a little in love with Hopkins. It’s a good thing he’s dead, or my husband might have something to worry about. Except that Hopkins was a Jesuit priest, so I’m thinking probably nothing to worry about after all… Ah. Read more about Hopkins at the Poets.org biography, if you like. More of my favorite poems from Hopkins:
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
Pied Beauty (freckles!)
My own heart let me have more pity on
Summa
Grandeurious mountain photo courtesy of panoramas (flickr). Gerard’s headshot from Poets.org.