God's Grand State

The world is charged with the grand state of God.
  It will flame out, like light shines from shook foil;
  It builds up to a great point, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.  Why do men now not reck his rod?
Sons and their sons have trod, have trod, have trod;
  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
  And wear's man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, since it's shod.

And for all this, the world's own can't be spent;
  There lives what's most dear, fresh, deep down in things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
  Oh, the dawn, at the brown brink in the east, springs --
All this since the Great Ghost on top of the bent
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

                                -- Dad Small Hops

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