“God’s Grandeur” is a sonnet written by the English Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manly Hopkins. Hopkins wrote “God’s Grandeur” in 1877, but as with many of his poems, it wasn’t published until almost thirty years after his 1889 death. The word "grandeur" means grandness or magnificence. In "God's Grandeur" Hopkins conveys his reverence for the magnificence of God and nature, and his despair about the way that humanity has seemed to lose sight of the close connection between God and nature during the Second Industrial Revolution. Though the poem is a traditional 14-line sonnet, it's also an example of Hopkins’s characteristic use of unconventional poetic meters—though the meter of “God’s Grandeur” is actually more conventional than that of many of his other poems.
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The Full Text of “God's Grandeur”
1The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
2 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
3 It 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;
6 And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
7 And 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;
10 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
11And though the last lights off the black West went
12 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
13Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
14 World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
The Full Text of “God's Grandeur”
1The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
2 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
3 It 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;
6 And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
7 And 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;
10 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
11And though the last lights off the black West went
12 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
13Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
14 World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
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“God's Grandeur” Summary
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“God's Grandeur” Themes
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God, Nature, and Man
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Industry and Destruction
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “God's Grandeur”
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Line 1
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
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Lines 2-4
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. -
Line 4
Why do men then now not reck his rod?
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Lines 5-6
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; -
Lines 7-8
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. -
Lines 9-10
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; -
Lines 11-12
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — -
Lines 13-14
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
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“God's Grandeur” Symbols
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Feet
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Sunrise and Sunset
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“God's Grandeur” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Enjambment
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Alliteration
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Caesura
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Epizeuxis
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Metaphor
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Metonymy
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Polysyndeton
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Rhetorical Question
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Simile
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“God's Grandeur” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Charged
- Grandeur
- Reck
- Rod
- Trod
- Trade
- Bleared
- Toil
- Foot
- Shod
- Spent
- Brink
- Bent
- Broods
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “God's Grandeur”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“God's Grandeur” Speaker
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“God's Grandeur” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “God's Grandeur”
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More “God's Grandeur” Resources
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External Resources
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"God's Grandeur" Read Aloud — Listen to a reading of the entire poem.
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An explanation of sprung rhythm — A short Encyclopaedia Brittanica entry about sprung rhythm, which is the meter that Hopkins invented.
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Wikipedia Entry on Hopkins — A relatively brief biography of Hopkins's life, along with an overview of his body of poetry.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
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