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. (God's Grandeur, verse 2)
Thomas Gradgrind might have scorned this poem - what on earth does it mean? It certainly doesn't deal with facts. I have returned to it many times and find it speaks to me at some level, although its message is bounded by its own words. It is about the grandeur of God, seen despite the best efforts of humanity to obscure it. Beyond that no explanation is possible.
We are told by those who have been there that encounter with God through meditative prayer cannot be put into words. Perhaps this is Hopkins' attempt? Can we express ours in some way?
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