Man’s Mindset vs. God Grandeur

A riff on, but no apologies to, Gerard Manley Hopkins

MAN’S MINDSET

The world is charged with the mindset of man

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do we then now not think our plan?

Generations have gone, have gone, have gone;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wear’s man’s smudge and shares man’s smell; the soil

Is hard now, as foot can feel, worn to bone.

And in all this, nature is badly spent;

            There lies the dearest drearness deep down things;

And as the last lights of the black West went

            No morning at the brown brink eastward springs —

Spiritus Mundi flees from the rent

            World, pale with dead mist; no comfort it brings.