In itself there is something infinite, something eternal, something defiant of measurement. In everything there is something that comes down from the original light, moving onward from the light of the rising sun to that of the setting sun. This is not only the light of the sun, but the light of everything that is irradiated and enlightened by the sun. And even when our little sun has set in the evening, there appear the greater lights of the twinkling stars above us at night. It is they who assure us, more than the sun in daytime, that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God”.
Then, as the days pass in the course of the revolving year, from winter to spring and from summer to autumn, there is a further revelation. It is a revelation that is granted to us even in “the penalty of Adam, the seasons’ difference”. What is the cold of winter but a divine preparation for springtime? And what is spring but a taste of “the sweet being in the beginning in Eden garden”? And what is the heat of summer but a divine preparation for the time of autumn? And what is autumn, bringing the falling leaves, but a foretaste of the approaching end of all? From our beginning to our end, from light to darkness, and from life to death, what does it all denote but what the poet spells in “Spelt from Sibyl’s leaves”? What is it but “Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, vaulty, voluminous, stupendous”? What is it but “charged with the grandeur of God”?
That is what the world proclaims to us not so much from dawn to dusk, within the cocoon of our earthly existence, as high up in the heavens, in the continued shining of the fixed stars. The grandeur of it all assures us that we who began to exist in the sunrise of birth will not cease to exist in the sunset of death. After all, the grandeur is not limited to the daily movement of the sun from light to darkness, as it were from life to death, but it is revealed all the time in the height of heaven. For so it is from the height of heaven that we hear, with the shepherds, the carol of the angelic host, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth!” – charged with the grandeur of God.
Nor is it only in the highest that the glory and grandeur of God is manifest to the wondering eyes of mortals on earth. But even in the depths of the earth, in the mines of gold and silver with all kinds of precious stones, his glory is revealed to the patient labor of human beings. Nor is it only in the bowels of the earth that his glory has to be discovered, like the treasure hidden in a field which has to be purchased by one who knows the secret of its presence. But also in the roots of plants, of trees and flowers, where their blossoms lie buried for a time during the cold months of winter, “shrunk to their mother-roots”, till they are summoned above ground by the warm sun and the scattered showers of spring – “charged with the grandeur of God.”
Then it is that we behold, with uncovered eyes, the divine truth that “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things”. It all comes up from the earth below to gladden our human eyes, reminding us of the earth’s “sweet being in the beginning”, as all these things come forth from the abundance of God’s bounty. Why? “Because,” Hopkins answers with an inspired “ah!”, “the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”
“Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!”
“Look at the stars!” Surely there is no such thing as evil. All is good, and evil can only subsist as a parasite to good. The fruit of the forbidden tree itself isn’t evil, but the combined knowledge of good and evil. “This our life,” exclaims the elder duke in As You Like It, “exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” There is evil in the city and at court, where the sins of envy and greed reign supreme. But here in the Forest of Arden there is no room for envy or greed. All are equal, all are free, all are brothers in the state of Nature, as decreed by Nature’s God from the beginning.
“Look at the stars!”Nor, likewise, is there any such thing as darkness. All is light, and darkness can only exist in contrast to the light that precedes in the daytime and supersedes in the starry heavens above. During the day the light of the sun is too strong for human labourers. During the night the reflected light of the moon is too weak for human travellers. But it is at night, in contrast to the surrounding darkness of earth, that the stars draw our wondering eyes up to the height and lead us to “look before and after”. Then we are able to discern both past and future in the present in accordance with the rational nature of man
“Look at the stars!” exclaims the childlike poet. And again, “Look, look up at the skies!” All he can say, again and again, is “Look!” Or in Biblical terms, “Behold and see”, if there be any glory like unto this glory! This is indeed the glory of God, as proclaimed from the beginning by the stars and the angels. The stars are what we see with our eyes in the gradual unfolding of created light from the first day when God said, “Let there be light!” The angels are what we perceive with our mind as present within all that glorious light, praising God in their celestial hierarchy.
“Look at the stars!” Such was the starry night when Christ was born in the city of Bethlehem. And such was the song of the angels heard by the shepherds when they were summoned to Bethlehem by “the good tidings of great joy”. Just as the stars are innumerable, no less innumerable are the thousands upon thousands of angels, all praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth!”
“Look, look up at the skies!” Do but look up at them! Do but look up at the stars, up at the skies, up, up, up!” It even becomes a strain on the neck muscles to keep on looking up. One would like to lie down before looking up. There stretched out supine on the earth we might without straining look up at the heavens and take in all the stars, while perceiving the presence of the angels behind the stars.
“Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!” It was no doubt on such a night as this that Abraham stood or sat at the entrance to his tent in Chaldea. Then we may imagine him looking up at the stars and listening to their “fair, speechless messages”. And then he heard the divine voice calling him, “Abraham, Abraham!” And then he replied, “Here I am!” And so it is from generation to generation, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Samuel. So the divine voice is heard in the silence of the stars, calling on men to come and follow, as Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, James and John, by the lakeside, “Come, follow me!”
“Nothing is so beautiful as spring!”
“Nothing is so beautiful.”Nothing, one may well object, is so banal as this opening line of Hopkins’ poem, “Nothing is so beautiful as spring!” Nothing is so banal, unless it is the opening line of Shakespeare’s sonnet, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” But human language, including poetic language, is full of such banality. Only, whether it is objectionably banal or not depends not so much on the particular word or phrase as on what follows
“Nothing is so beautiful.” In the one case, Hopkins goes on to speak more precisely of springtime, “When weeds in wheels shoot long and lovely and lush”. What is that but a downright rejection of banality? In the other case, Shakespeare goes on to reject the expected affirmative answer to “Shall I?” Instead, he follows it up with an implicit denial in the form of a comparative, “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
“Nothing is so beautiful.”In either case the seeming banality of the opening line takes on a deeper, unsuspected meaning, awakening the reader to a deeper, unsuspected reality. For reality, especially when it proceeds from divine inspiration, cannot but be shocking. It may be compared to an alarm-clock, or to Haydn’s “Surprise Symphony”
“Nothing is so beautiful.” Thus one might say of Hopkins’