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.
Summary
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.
Summary
The first four lines of the octave (the first eight-line stanza of
an Italian sonnet) describe a natural world through which God’s presence runs
like an electrical current, becoming momentarily visible in flashes like the
refracted glintings of light produced by metal foil when rumpled or quickly
moved. Alternatively, God’s presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap that wells up
“to a greatness” when tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure. Given
these clear, strong proofs of God’s presence in the world, the poet asks how it
is that humans fail to heed (“reck”) His divine authority (“his rod”).
The
second quatrain within the octave describes the state of contemporary human
life—the blind repetitiveness of human labor, and the sordidness and stain of
“toil” and “trade.” The landscape in its natural state reflects God as its
creator; but industry and the prioritization of the economic over the spiritual
have transformed the landscape, and robbed humans of their sensitivity to the
those few beauties of nature still left. The shoes people wear sever the
physical connection between our feet and the earth they walk on, symbolizing an
ever-increasing spiritual alienation from nature.
The
sestet (the final six lines of the sonnet, enacting a turn or shift in
argument) asserts that, in spite of the fallenness of Hopkins’s contemporary
Victorian world, nature does not cease offering up its spiritual indices.
Permeating the world is a deep “freshness” that testifies to the continual
renewing power of God’s creation. This power of renewal is seen in the way
morning always waits on the other side of dark night. The source of this
constant regeneration is the grace of a God who “broods” over a seemingly
lifeless world with the patient nurture of a mother hen. This final image is
one of God guarding the potential of the world and containing within Himself
the power and promise of rebirth. With the final exclamation (“ah! bright
wings”) Hopkins suggests both an awed intuition of the beauty of God’s grace,
and the joyful suddenness of a hatchling bird emerging out of God’s loving incubation.
Form (READ UP ON THE FORMS OF POETRY:
This poem
is an Italian sonnet—it contains fourteen lines divided into an octave and a
sestet, which are separated by a shift in the argumentative direction of the
poem. The meter here is not the “sprung rhythm” for which Hopkins is so famous,
but it does vary somewhat from the iambic pentameter lines of the conventional
sonnet. For example, Hopkins follows stressed syllable with stressed syllable
in the fourth line of the poem, bolstering the urgency of his question: “Why do
men then now not reck his rod?” Similarly, in the next line, the heavy, falling
rhythm of “have trod, have trod, have trod,” coming after the quick lilt of
“generations,” recreates the sound of plodding footsteps in striking
onomatopoeia.
SOME TERMS YOU MAY COME ACROSS
iambic pentametre: Let’s define some terms to help explain this one. Meter refers to the pattern of syllables in a line of poetry. The most basic unit of measure in a poem is the syllable and the pattern of syllables in a line, from stressed to unstressed or vice versa. This is the meter. Syllables are paired two and three at a time, depending on the stresses in the sentence.
LOOK AT THE STREESED (high) AS OPPOSED TO THE UNSTRESSED (low) SYLLABLES
SOME TERMS YOU MAY COME ACROSS
iambic pentametre: Let’s define some terms to help explain this one. Meter refers to the pattern of syllables in a line of poetry. The most basic unit of measure in a poem is the syllable and the pattern of syllables in a line, from stressed to unstressed or vice versa. This is the meter. Syllables are paired two and three at a time, depending on the stresses in the sentence.
Two syllables together, or three if it’s a three-syllable construction, is known as a foot. So in a line of poetry the cow would be considered one foot. Because when you say the words, the is unstressed and cow is stressed, it can be represented as da DUM. An unstressed/stressed foot is known as an iamb. That’s where the term iambic comes from.
Pentameter is simply penta, which means 5, meters. So a line of poetry written in pentameter has 5 feet, or 5 sets of stressed and unstressed syllables. In basic iambic pentameter, a line would have 5 feet of iambs, which is an unstressed and then a stressed syllable. For example:
If you would put the key inside the lock
This line has 5 feet, so it’s written in pentameter. And the stressing pattern is all iambs:
if YOU | would PUT | the KEY | inSIDE | the LOCK
da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM
That’s the simplest way to define iambic pentameter
LOOK AT THE STREESED (high) AS OPPOSED TO THE UNSTRESSED (low) SYLLABLES
| caesura | a pause in a line of poetry, generally indicated with a mark of punctuation, such as a comma, period, dash, colon, or semi-colon |
| enjambment | a line running onto the next line before a punctuation mark |
| sprung rhythm | simply put, OVERSTRESSING in a line. A term conceived of by Gerard Manly Hopkins in which the rhythm of a line is based on the number of stressed syllables in a line without regard to the number of unstressed syllables. In his system, each foot begins with a stress but can consist of any number of syllables (a foot can be a single stress, trochee, dactyl, or first paeon). This device works well with stressful, urgent subjects; since Hopkins equated stressed syllables with strength, this form is considered "muscular" but also anguished. |
Commentary
The poem
begins with the surprising metaphor of God’s grandeur as an electric force. The
figure suggests an undercurrent that is not always seen, but which builds up a
tension or pressure that occasionally flashes out in ways that can be both
brilliant and dangerous. The optical effect of “shook foil” is one example of
this brilliancy. The image of the oil being pressed out of an olive represents
another kind of richness, where saturation and built-up pressure eventually
culminate in a salubrious (healthy, wholesome) overflow. The image of electricity
makes a subtle return in the fourth line, where the “rod” of God’s punishing
power calls to mind the lightning rod in which excess electricity in the
atmosphere will occasionally “flame out.” Hopkins carefully chooses this
complex of images to link the secular and scientific to mystery, divinity, and
religious tradition.
Electricity
was an area of much scientific interest during Hopkins’s day, and is an example
of a phenomenon that had long been taken as an indication of divine power but
which was now explained in naturalistic, rational terms. Hopkins is defiantly
affirmative in his assertion that God’s work is still to be seen in nature, if
men will only concern themselves to look. Refusing to ignore the discoveries of
modern science, he takes them as further evidence of God’s grandeur rather than
a challenge to it. Hopkins’s awe at the optical effects of a piece of foil
attributes revelatory power to a man-made object; gold-leaf foil had also been
used in recent influential scientific experiments.
The olive
oil, on the other hand, is an ancient sacramental substance, used for centuries
for food, medicine, lamplight, and religious purposes. This oil thus
traditionally appears in all aspects of life, much as God suffuses all branches
of the created universe. Moreover, the slowness of its oozing contrasts with
the quick electric flash; the method of its extraction implies such spiritual
qualities as patience and faith. (By including this description Hopkins may
have been implicitly criticizing the violence and rapaciousness with which his
contemporaries drilled petroleum oil to fuel industry.) Thus both the images of
the foil and the olive oil bespeak an all-permeating divine presence that
reveals itself in intermittent flashes or droplets of brilliance.
Hopkins’s
question in the fourth line focuses his readers on the present historical
moment; in considering why men are no longer God-fearing, the emphasis is on
“now.” The answer is a complex one. The second quatrain contains an indictment
of the way a culture’s neglect of God translates into a neglect of the
environment. But it also suggests that the abuses of previous generations are
partly to blame; they have soiled and “seared” our world, further hindering our
ability to access the holy. Yet the sestet affirms that, in spite of the
interdependent deterioration of human beings and the earth, God has not
withdrawn from either. He possesses an infinite power of renewal, to which the
regenerative natural cycles testify. The poem reflects Hopkins’s conviction
that the physical world is like a book written by God, in which the attentive
person can always detect signs of a benevolent authorship, and which can help
mediate human beings’ contemplation of this Author.
Themes
The Manifestation of God in Nature
Hopkins used poetry to express his religious devotion, drawing his
images from the natural world. He found nature inspiring and developed his
theories of inscape and instress to explore the manifestation of God in every
living thing. According to these theories, the recognition of an object’s
unique identity, which was bestowed upon that object by God, brings us closer
to Christ. Similarly, the beauty of the natural world—and our appreciation of
that beauty—helps us worship God. Many poems, including “Hurrahing in Harvest”
and “The Windhover,” begin with the speaker praising an aspect of nature, which
then leads the speaker into a consideration of an aspect of God or Christ. For
instance, in “The Starlight Night,” the speaker urges readers to notice the marvels
of the night sky and compares the sky to a structure, which houses Christ, his
mother, and the saints. The stars’ link to Christianity makes them more
beautiful.
The Regenerative Power of Nature
Hopkins’s early poetry praises nature, particularly nature’s
unique ability to regenerate and rejuvenate. Throughout his travels in England
and Ireland, Hopkins witnessed the detrimental effects of industrialization on
the environment, including pollution, urbanization, and diminished rural
landscapes. While he lamented these effects, he also believed in nature’s power
of regeneration, which comes from God. In “God’s Grandeur,” the speaker notes
the wellspring that runs through nature and through humans. While Hopkins never
doubted the presence of God in nature, he became increasingly depressed by late
nineteenth-century life and began to doubt nature’s ability to withstand human
destruction. His later poems, the so-called terrible sonnets, focus on images
of death, including the harvest and vultures picking at prey. Rather than
depict the glory of nature’s rebirth, these poems depict the deaths that must
occur in order for the cycle of nature to continue. “Thou Art Indeed Just,
Lord” (1889) uses
parched roots as a metaphor for despair: the speaker begs Christ to help him
because Christ’s love will rejuvenate him, just as water helps rejuvenate dying
foliage.
Motifs
Colors
According to Hopkins’s theory of
inscape, all living things have a constantly shifting design or pattern that
gives each object a unique identity. Hopkins frequently uses color to describe
these inscapes. “Pied Beauty” praises God for giving every object a distinct
visual pattern, from sunlight as multicolored as a cow to the beauty of birds’
wings and freshly plowed fields. Indeed, the word pied means “having splotches of two or more
colors.” In “Hurrahing in Harvest,” the speaker describes “azourous hung hills”
(9) that are “very-violet-sweet” (10). Elsewhere, the use of color to
describe nature becomes more complicated, as in “Spring.” Rather than just call
the birds’ eggs “blue,” the speaker describes them as resembling pieces of the
sky and thus demonstrates the interlocking order of objects in the natural
world. In “The Windhover,” the speaker yokes adjectives to convey the peculiar,
precise beauty of the bird in flight—and to convey the idea that nature’s
colors are so magnificent that they require new combinations of words in order
to be imagined.
Ecstatic, Transcendent Moments
Many of Hopkins’s poems feature
an ecstatic outcry, a moment at which the speaker expresses his transcendence
of the real world into the spiritual world. The words ah, o, and oh usually signal the point at which the
poem moves from a description of nature’s beauty to an overt expression of
religious sentiment. “Binsey Poplars” (1879), a poem about the destruction of a forest, begins with a
description of the downed trees but switches dramatically to a lamentation
about the human role in the devastation; Hopkins signals the switch by not only
beginning a new stanza but also by beginning the line with “O” (9). Hopkins also uses exclamation
points and appositives to articulate ecstasy: in “Carrion Comfort,” the speaker
concludes with two cries to Christ, one enclosed in parentheses and punctuated
with an exclamation point and the other punctuated with a period. The words and
the punctuation alert the reader to the instant at which the poem shifts from
secular concerns to religious feeling.
Bold Musicality
To express inscape and instress,
Hopkins experimented with rhythm and sound to create sprung rhythm, a distinct
musicality that resembles the patterns of natural speech in English. The
flexible meter allowed Hopkins to convey the fast, swooping falcon in “The
Windhover” and the slow movement of heavy clouds in “Hurrahing in Harvest.” To
indicate how his lines should be read aloud, Hopkins often marked words with
acute accents, as in “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” and “Spring and Fall.” Alliteration, or the
juxtaposition of similar sounds, links form with content, as in this line from
“God’s Grandeur”: “And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil” (6). In the act of repeating “red,”
our mouths make a long, low sound that resembles the languid movements of
humans made tired from factory labor. Elsewhere, the alliterative lines become
another way of worshiping the divine because the sounds roll and bump together
in pleasure. “Spring” begins, “Nothing is so beautiful as Spring— / When weeds,
in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” (1–2).
Symbols
Birds
Birds appear throughout Hopkins’s poetry, frequently as stand-ins
for God and Christ. In “The Windhover,” a poem dedicated to Christ, the speaker
watches a falcon flying through the sky and finds traces of Christ in its
flight path. The beauty of the bird causes the speaker to reflect on the beauty
of Christ because the speaker sees a divine imprint on all living things.
Similarly, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” meditates on the innate behaviors and patterns
of beings in the universe: the inscape of birds manifests in their flights,
much as the inscape of stone manifests in the sound of flowing water. Christ
appears everywhere in these inscape manifestations. In Christian iconography,
birds serve as reminders that there is life away from earth, in heaven—and the
Holy Ghost is often represented as a dove. “God’s Grandeur” portrays the Holy
Ghost literally, as a bird big enough to brood over the entire world,
protecting all its inhabitants.
Fire
Hopkins uses images of fire to
symbolize the passion behind religious feeling, as well as to symbolize God and
Christ. In “God’s Grandeur,” Hopkins compares the glory of God and the
beautiful bounty of his world to fire, a miraculous presence that warms and
beguiles those nearby. He links fire and Christ in “The Windhover,” as the
speaker sees a flame burst at the exact moment in which he realizes that the
falcon contains Christ. Likewise, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” uses the phrase
“catch fire” as a metaphor for the birds’ manifestation of the divine imprint,
or inscape, in their natural behavior. In that poem too, the dragonflies “draw
flame” (1), or
create light, to show their distinct identities as living things. Nature’s
fire—lightning—appears in other poems as a way of demonstrating the innate
signs of God and Christ in the natural world: God and Christ appear throughout
nature, regardless of whether humans are there to witness their appearances.
Trees
Trees appear in Hopkins’s poems to dramatize the earthly effects
of time and to show the detrimental effects of humans on nature. In “Spring and
Fall,” the changing seasons become a metaphor for maturation, aging, and the
life cycle, as the speaker explains death to a young girl: all mortal things
die, just as all deciduous trees lose their leaves. In “Binsey Poplars,” the
speaker mourns the loss of a forest from human destruction, then urges readers
to be mindful of damaging the natural world. Cutting down a tree becomes a
metaphor for the larger destruction being enacted by nineteenth-century
urbanization and industrialization. Trees help make an area more beautiful, but
they do not manifest God or Christ in the same way as animate objects, such as
animals or humans.
Born 1951 in Southampton, Stewart Brown is a poet, editor and critic. He studied art and literature at Falmouth School of Art, the University of Sussex and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He spent periods teaching in schools and universities in Jamaica, Nigeria, Wales and Barbados. Since 1988 he has taught in The Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham, where he is now Reader in African and Caribbean literatures. He has travelled widely through West Africa and the Caribbean in relation to both his research and creative writing, and lectured for the British Council in both regions. As a poet he received a Gregory Award in 1976 and has subsequently published four collections of poetry.In the 70s he had several one–man–shows of paintings in Jamaica and the UK, and he continues to make visual images. He has edited or co-edited several anthologies of African and Caribbean writing and critical studies of the West Indian poets Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite and Martin Carter.