Updated on May 27, 2020
Poem for Pentecost Sunday
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 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.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)
How can we possibly capture the free and unconfined spirit of God, the very life of
God, in words? Poets look for images to help us picture what is beyond words.
Hopkins uses the image of electricity to suggest that the whole world is shot
through, charged, with God’s life force. Even though humans have done so much
damage to the natural world, the freshness of God’s creativity never fails. The final
image of God’s life giving Spirit is of a warm mother bird sheltering us all. A safe
place to be nurtured as we prepare to fly, to be launched into His world!
– Tina Lamb
Thank you dear Lissy for this wonderful poem! I discovered this in college & have treasured it ever since! In this truly heartbreaking time it means more than ever. Blessings! ? Annie