Starry Night over the Rhine by Vincent Van Gogh
God's Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, is perhaps the first poem that ever captured my soul. Whenever I read it, I'm struck again by the power of the glory of God. It cannot be buried, suppressed or ignored. And when we are in need of a great renewal, when we yearn like a barren landscape to be reseeded with life and vitality, we can also rely on the brooding Holy Ghost. She rises daily to fill us with the dearest, freshness deep down things, so that once again we can flame out, like shining from shook foil.
God's Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins
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.
Note:
I'll be offline until Feb 20, resting and playing in the shadow of bright wings. See you then.
