The University of Kansas Libraries

God’s Grandeur

by 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.       

Read more Gerard Manley Hopkins at Bartleby.com.

KU Libraries collections contain more than 28,000 books of or about poetry. Throughout April, a special selection of poetry books will be available for checkout in Watson Library near the 3rd floor service desk. Come check it out!

Return to KU Libraries Poem-a-Day main page.