Here is Prince Charles reading Gerard Manley Hopkins' second most famous poem, "God's Grandeur."
"God's Grandeur" Prince Charles 2021 Easter Message
Here is the text for this poem, with explanatory notes, from an earlier post in this blog:
This is not a strong "resurrection poem"; Hopkins did write some Easter specific poems. If you click the "Easter" link, you will pull some up. But at least it does mention "the Holy Ghost." At one time, Charles seemed to be drifting away from Christian-specific matters, but that does not seem to be the case anymore.
I imagine Charles chose this, partly, because of the environmental theme. I also wonder if, as Prince of Wales, he did it for the Welsh connection. Hopkins was an English Jesuit priest, but his most favorite place of serving was Wales. He learned some Welsh. (For a poetry day event several years ago, the Prince of Wales read a poem by the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.)
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| Prince Charles at his investiture as Prince of Wales, 1969 |
Just for "fun", here is a poem I wrote as a "riff" off of a line in "God's Grandeur."
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2 comments:
Hopkin is interesting, bringing a special weight to his poems; I think some influence of his seeps through to my attempts at non-regular verse (probably via R S Thomas - a real Welshman).I've had a few holidays in Wales, which can be nearly as beautiful as Scotland!
I am not aware of any evidence of real faith with Charles, but "the Lord knows those that are his". It is a problem to be expecting to be king of a rather post-Christian nation, and wanting not to discriminate against Muslim, Hindu and other religions.
I wrote my first master's thesis on Hopkins work... at a Lutheran school with a very analytical professor! It only had to be a "mini-thesis", but grew into a full one by the time I did all the "explaining" I needed to do.
RE: Prince Charles--- I don't know what his actual faith is, either, of course. At least he'll touch the hot rail of expressing actual Christian things in these later years. I remember his "fuzzy headed stuff" in decades past.
I'm disappointed that our last president took up public 'Christianity' as a cudgel, when he didn't ever seem to really practice it personally. Our current president was a faithful Roman Catholic over his lifetime. Some of his current politics go against that. Then his recent Easter message didn't even mention Christ. I wrote the White House and said there were ways of specifically addressing this Christian holiday without trampling on non-Christians. (I am that person that will write people!)
You are doing amazing, thoughtful work in your poetry. I need to take more of a "deep dive" into it again.
God bless your Easter season.
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