Poem for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

Hurrahing in Harvest

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! What lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, héart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! –
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 – 1899

Jesus said “ Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”
(Matthew 13:16)
Have you ever thought of nature as God’s book just waiting for those who have eyes
and heart and mind to see and read it?
Lift up heart and eyes this week and look out for all that beauty and glory.
Notice that it is no “gentle Jesus meek and mild” that Hopkins discovers. This is a
passionate, wild, untamed Saviour. You can safely let rip to such a Saviour in your
prayer at any time.

Tina Lamb