The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining 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 ever the bent
World broods with warm breast and with, ah! bright wings.

Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-89).