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God's Grandeur: Annotated

An account of being charged with the grandeur of God

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God's Grandeur: Annotated
Terry Presley

The italicized lines below are taken from the poem "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;

I thought the sky was going to crack and the world would end

And even though I always said I was not afraid to die

I was terrified.

How could the thin shell of the atmosphere make such a sound

And not shatter?

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;

In the morning it was as if it never happened.

The only ones who remembered were the trees

That had come undone.

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.

I forget and the sky reminds me

I forget and the sky reminds

Then I forget and I am under a different sky.

This sky does not remind me.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

But can we truly forget?

The flight of a bird sends a shock through my system

The evening breeze slows me and fills me with comfort

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

I didn’t know that I was blind until I saw

The layers of the world peeled open

Night after night.

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

We live surrounded in gifts.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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