God's Grandeur

¹The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

²It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

³It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

⁴Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

⁵Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

⁶And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

⁷And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

⁸Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

⁹And for all this, nature is never spent;

¹⁰There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

¹¹And though the last lights off the black West went

¹²Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

¹³Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

¹⁴World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.