I recently discovered Gerard Manley Hopkins and… dang. His poems are sometimes difficult to understand, but such a pleasure to read aloud. I love the sounds and interplay between words–they fill my mouth like rich food and I slowly chew the sounds, savoring each bite. I find certain lines getting caught in my head and, as the day goes on, I repeat them to myself over and over again.
Here is one of my favorites:
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.
In my high school English class, we would always read poetry on Fridays. I rather like the tradition, so thought I’d bring it to my blog.
