Sunrise with Smith and Hopkins

An ‘ordinary’ morning last week somewhere over Warwickshire:

Immortal, Invisible God only wise,

In light inaccesible hid from our eyes…

Most Blessed, most glorious, Oh, help us to see

Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee’

(Walter Smith – hymn writer, well said Walter)

Or as Gerald Manley Hopkins put it

‘The world is charged with grandeur of God. 

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

Hopkins wrote this in 1877 and the poem asks poignantly ‘why do men then now not reck his rod?

The language is archaic but the question is still current, why do we not take heed of the authority of God when such splendours are cast at our feet daily?

Good question, good poem. Here’s a link if you want to read the rest. http://blog.writeathome.com/index.php/2012/12/gods-grandeur-by-gerard-manley-hopkins/