English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
His Life through his Poetry
A Transcript of the Proposed Downloads and CD with Free Audio Excerpts
TRACK 20: Triumph
In the early part of 1889 Hopkins contracted typhoid fever. Eventually peritonitis set in, and his parents were summoned from England. The last rites were administered, and on June 8th, he died, his last words being, 'I am so happy, so happy'.
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.