Green Catholicism

Godsgrandeur

Yes, the IPCC report was depressing. But also galvanizing. In that spirit, here's a poem from one of the most inspired religious environmentalists, the nineteenth century English Catholic poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Its title is "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.