I follow a lot of posts and blogs by knitting designers because I am interested in what they are doing and where they get their design inspiration. Today a very famous designer and teacher, Cat Bordhi posted and I realized that she had named her blog site – “Dearest Freshness Deep Down Things.“
Well, this phrase rang a bell. I couldn’t place it at first. Then I realized that it was a line of poetry from a poem….by….at first I thought Dylan Thomas and then it clicked – Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is one of my favourites. It is also from one of my favourite poems – God’s Grandeur. Here is the poem.
| THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God. | |
| It will flame out, like shining from 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; | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| And though the last lights off the black West went | |
| Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— | |
| Because the Holy Ghost over the bent | |
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World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
And here are my photo takes on the poem – “dearest freshness deep down things” – Burke’s Creek Ravine
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and “morning, at the brown brink, eastward – springs”
Thank you Cat for this reminder. I love having an excuse to pause in the day and think about things that are truly grand.
Have a wonderful day!!!