God’s Grandeur

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.