08 April 2007

Poetry corner!

I forgot that April was National Poetry Month. Here's some Gerard Manley Hopkins, just for that Easter spirit.


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 ah! bright wings.

2 comments:

Darlene said...

I love Hopkins, too. "Pied Beauty" is one of the very few poems I have made the effort to memorize as an adult. "He fathers forth whose beauty is past change. Praise him!" Lovely!

Melinda R. Cordell said...

I really enjoy how he uses the sounds of the words. Isn't memorization dandy? Whereever you are, you always have a poem all ready to go.

Thanks for dropping by.