Natural Connections with God

Throughout his poem, God’s Grandeur, Gerard Manley Hopkins develops the motif of nature. In the second line, Hopkins compares the power of God to the “shining of shook foil” which he notes is to be understood as a gleaming leaf. This paints a strong image in my mind of bright fall leaves hanging loosely on tree limbs, perhaps moist with morning dew so that when a buck sharpens his antlers against the trunk and the whole plant shakes, the leaves drift to the ground, glittering in the early sunlight. In other words, this phrase creates the feeling of an awe-inspiring, picturesque connection to God through its portrayal of a beautiful, natural image. He goes on to compare God’s greatness to the “ooze of oil Crushed” (olive oil), another natural depiction. One may even go so far as to consider the particular decision to use the image of olives because of the importance of the olive branch in the Bible.  

While Gerard Manley Hopkins first uses it to describe the holy, uplifting spirit of God, later in the poem he uses the motif of nature once again, this time to describe the negative effects of man on earth. Lines 5-8 express grudgingly how people across generations have done damage and how “the soil is bare now” (7-8), dirtied with “man’s smudge” (7) and “man’s smell” (7). Soil, often associated with dirt, is not a very pretty image firstly, and then when the ground is “trod” (5) upon and “bleared, smeared with [the] toil” (6) of humans, the negative connotation is evident. The author uses these vivid words and ties to the unattractive side of nature to represent how humans are abusing the world and do not have enough respect for God anymore. Hopkins uses the motif of nature in his poem God’s Grandeur to describe both positive and negative aspects of the relationship between humans and God.