God's Grandeur

 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 through 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.

[ Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 - 1889 ]