As a Jesuit priest who had converted to Catholicism in the summer of 1866, Gerard Manley Hopkins’s mind was no doubt saturated with the Bible (Bergonzi 34). Although in "God’s Grandeur" Hopkins does not use any specific quotations from the Bible, he does employ images that evoke a variety of biblical verses and scenes, all of which lend meaning to his poem. Hopkins "creates a powerful form of typological allusion by abstracting the essence--the defining …showed first 75 words of 3628 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3628 total…God, through the constant presence of His Holy Spirit, continues to rejuvenate physical nature as well as the human spirit; both are "being made over anew" (Wisd. 19.6). So, however dark and dreary this world may appear (and does appear in lines five through eight of the poem), we must not surrender hope. For as Christ exhorted, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16.33). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------