GOD’S GRANDEUR

GOD’S GRANDEUR

Gerard Manley Hopkins

HOPKINS,GERARD MANLEY ( 1844- 89) ,English  poet ,Influenced  at Oxford by John Henry new man, Hopkins  converted to Roman Catholicism in 1966 and became a Jesuit two years later , He wrote little poetry until 1876,when the shipwreck of a vessel carrying nuns and other emigrants to Americans the previous year inspired him to wren “ The wreck of the Deutschland .”The poem makes bold use of Hopkins’s sprung rhythm “ technique  (whereby each foot had one stressed syllable followed by a varying number of undressed ),as do his best  - known  poems “ Wind hover” and “ Pied  Beauty” ,both written in 1977 . HIs work collected in poems (1918), was published posthumously by this friend Robert bridges.

IN this sonnet, Hopkins praises the magnificence and glory of

God in the world, blending accurate observation with lofty imagination,

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

                  

                    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

                    It gathers to greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed .Why do men then now not rack 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,