Is God Grandeur on Jesus' Birthday
...hin the second quatrain, Millay gives an insight on religious proceedings which take place on Jesus’ birthday, Christmas. Lines five and six allow the reader to visualize the proceedings that take place during Christmas. “The merry bells ring out, the people kneel/Up goes the man of God before the crowd” (Millay 5-6). These lines create an image of joy and appreciation, which extend though lines seven and eight as well. However, they also lead into the most important and influential line in the sonnet, which is completely empty of joy, “Nobody Listens” (Millay 9). Used as an Italian Turn, this short sentence carries the most meaning within the entire poem. It is very powerful and makes the poem work by getting a point across. Nobody listens to the preaching’s of Christ anymore, nobody listens to the true meaning and celebration of Christmas, nobody cares, unless it affects them. Everyone is selfish. The period at the end of the sentence allows for a dramatic pause, which intensifies its meaning and leads into the last half of the poem, where Millay speaks to Jesus once again. In the last quatrain, Edna St. Vincent Millay states that even though Jesus gave us words of wisdom and his own life, he now means less than the wind that blows and lies in his grave without being heard. Use of biblical imagery is seen in the final couplet, where Millay uses the resurrection as a metaphor. Lines thirteen and fourteen, “The stone the angel rolled away with tears/Is back upon your mouth these thousand years,” declare that Jesus is mute again, the same way he was before, yet not by our violence but by our own ignorance (Millay 13-14). Unlike Millay, who used a traditional English Sonnet form, Gerard Manley Hopkins used an Italian form in God’s Grandeur. Hopkins also uses biblical imagery and representation to express his views on the destructive ways which man has treated the world and how God reciprocates with undoubting faith. In the first octet, Hopkins illustrates a majestic and great world, created by God, yet questions why men choose to no longer trust in him or respect him. Hopkins says that the world was created by the power of God, the Almighty, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God” (Hopkins 1). He further exemplifies the power of God by saying, “It will flame out, like the shining of shook foil” (Hopkins 2). Many could mistake his representation of flaming out as God’s disappearance from mankind. However, it is interpreted as God’s light reflecting down upon us, in the same way light reflects off the angles of shook, or crumpled foil. He shines down on us from above every day. The poem begins with very positive and joyous visualizations, however, Hopkins reverses imagery in the very powerful line, “Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?” (Hopkins 4). Gerard Manley uses the word Crushed in the middle of this octet as an Italian turn, for this one word completely changes the tone of the poem at this point. God, once thought of as great and respected by all is now crushed, no longer considered to be great. The second half of line four questions why men no longer trust in God. It is in this line where Hopkins addresses the harsh reality of the world today; man has become selfish and disrespectful towards their creator with whom they should be eternally grateful. Within the second half of the octet, Hopkins symbolizes mans’ disregard for and destruction of God’s creation, nature. He straightforwardly gets his point across in line 5, “Generations have trod, have trod, have trod,” where he is implies that for many generations humans have disregarded the beauty of God’s creation, ignored it, polluted it and have basically destroyed it (Hopkins 5). The word trod ultimately means trade, which was becoming a huge industry at the time he wrote this poem. Hopkins creates a very unsettling imagine of the world in the last three lines of the octet. He implies that man has beaten the earth bare. Not only have they beaten it to bare soil, but without realizing they have become bare spiritually as well, feeling no sense of spiritual awareness. Man has become calloused, shod; “the soil/ is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod” (Hopkins 8). Up to this point, Hopkins has managed to create a depressing image of the world, and a loss of hope for faith in God. However, the Italian Turn in the first line of the sestet, ultimately reinstalls faith. The infinite power of God and nature will not be exhausted, “And for al this, nature is never spent” (Hopkins 9). Even though man has supposedly forgotten about or completely disrespected God and what he stands for, he is still with them, restoring mankind and nature. God is in the sunset of the west and in the sunrise in the east. “…the last lights of the black West went/Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—” (Hopkins 11-12). In the final two lines, Hopkins relates the image and meaning of the poem back to the first line. He reminds the reader that the Holy Ghost still charges the world, in every bend, and will continue to rejuvenate nature and mankind as vowed. Although Hopkins and Millay wrote these poems during two completely different time periods, they both managed to understand and write about the corruption of God’s essence. God’s Grandeur and To Jesus on his Birthday are not only similar in the fact that they are both sonnets, they also have similar meanings. Each poem expresses important issues related to mankind and their disrespect of the Faith and God. The issue Edna St. Vincent Millay is concerned with in this poem is materialism and greed which has taken over mankind. Like Millay, Gerard Manley Hopkins brings forth the issue of greed as well. Mankind has ignored the beauty of nature that was given ...