Poetry and Quotation of the Week

I have long been a fan of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I became a fan of his work in my literature classes at Point Loma Nazarene University as we studied his poetry in several classes. Hopkins is an admirable man as well as a talented poet (and history shows us that those two qualities do not often coalesce in the same person!).

As the Poem of the Day e-mail from the American Academy of Poets stated today: "...Gerard Manley Hopkins once gave up writing poetry for eight years while training to be ordained as a priest, though he later returned to the craft."

So with Hopkins we have a dual talent: poetry and the priesthood, a combination that birthed some of the most original worship poems ever published. Today's Poem of the Day celebrates Hopkins' most famous poem, the final lines of which are among my favorite lines of poetry of all time.

Please enjoy with me "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

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. Have a blessed week, everyone!!