07 September 2006

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.

(Louis Untermeyer)

1 comment:

Nindyo Sasongko said...

My Dear Friend, the poem was composed by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and included in the compilation of Loius Untermeyer. But most of all, the poem is a wonderful one. It shakes me as I came it across. Sometimes this present life loses orientation, doesn't it? We are disoriented; within this dialetics I read again and again, Hopkins poem, and there it is . . . World brood with warm breast and with, ah! bright wings! Isn't it hope? YES!!!