Holy Spirit's Breath

From My Mother’s Poetry Notebook: Holy Spirit’s Breath

MARY LOUISE HOOLEY-CARLISLE·SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2016

Breathe ore me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

~ Edwin Hatch

Draw Thou my soul, O Christ, closer to Thine;
Breathe into every wish Thy will divine!
Raise my low self above, won by Thy deathless love;
Ever, O Christ, through mine let Thy life shine.
Not for myself alone may my prayer be;
List Thou Thy world, O Crist, closer to Thee!
Cleanse it from guilt and wrong; teach is salvation’s song,
Till earth, as heaven, fulfill God’s holy will.

~ Lucy Larcom

God's Grandeur

God's Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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;
   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;
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
   World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.