Hopkins

It is a bit of a breath of fresh air to see a religious poet during this time period. I was beginning to wonder where they had all gone. Religious poetry was at one time the only kind of poetry, but it seemed to be somewhat of an abandoned theme for a while. The Romantics obviously had aspects of the occult in their poetry, but there wasn’t too much mention of God, and there has really been even less talk of such things with the Victorians. Hopkins however wrote some beautiful poetry that, as Bach would have put it, was Soli Deo Gloria. Hopkins even alludes to a bit of an absence of religion in people’s lives in his poem “God’s Grandeur.” He asks rhetorically, “Why do men then now not reck his rod?” (774; ll. 4). He too notices the absence of God not only in poetry, but more in the lives of his fellow man. He says, “Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; / And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil” (775; ll. 5-6). They have trod through years of toil because of the lack of the presence of God in their lives. There is comfort, however, in the end of the poem, because even though people do not necessarily consciously experience God in their lives, but He has not left them. Hopkins know God is still present, “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings” (775; ll. 13-14). God in the form of the Holy Ghost is always ready to return to the lives of people whenever they are ready to accept him, so while the beginning is some what bleak, there is always hope in the end.