Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Poetry Feast for St. Bridgid--Shining from Shook Foil

It's time for the Sixth Annual Bridgid Poetry Feast. There's a Facebook page for it, but I'm cranky about Facebook and won't join, so I'm just sprinkling links around a bit.

Actually, among the blogs I read, most days are poetry days, and Dave Bonta and Sherry Chandler frequently offer poetics as well as poetry. Recently, Dave explained and commented on a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry: a vital first step, and Sherry followed up.

I'm a Gerard Manley Hopkins fan, and, as this is public domain, I'm able to quote a full text here with no worries. On a day of grey skies and white snow, I guess I'm hankering after "shining from shook foil."

God's Grandeur (1877)
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89)

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. 

3 comments:

Poetry of the Day said...

ill be sure to join the FB page for it

Reya Mellicker said...

I love this! The rhythm, wow. Powerful words.

Someone posted this on Facebook. Yeah!!

Crafty Green Poet said...

I'm a Hopkins fan too, wonderful poem!