poem and ponderings

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.               The heavens declare the glory of God;

  It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;                   the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 

  It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil                                                              -Psalm 19:1

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?                   Creation itself also will be set free from its

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;                          slavery to corruption into the freedom of

  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;         the glory of the children of God.

  And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil     For we know that the whole creation groans and

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.                             suffers the pangs of childbirth together until now. ...

                                                                                         but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us

And for all this, nature is never spent;                                 with groanings too deep for words;

 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;                                                - Romans 8:21-22,26

And though the last lights off teh 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.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins