ROYAL VERSES: CHARLES READS HOPKINS FOR EASTER
THE PRINCE of Wales has recorded verse by acclaimed poet and Catholic priest Gerard Manley Hopkins to show support for Christians at Easter.
Charles reads the Hopkins poem God’s Grandeur which will be played during a virtual service tomorrow morning at Stonyhurst College, a Catholic boarding school in Lancashire where the cleric taught.
A spokesperson for Clarence House said: “Easter is the most important festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion, and Hopkins’s poem captures the hope and joy associated with that season.”
The poem begins with the lines: “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.”
Hopkins was one of the most influential poets of the Victorian era, although his poems were not published in full until 1918, almost 30 years after his death.
His use of language, new rhythmic effects and unusual word combinations were a huge influence on major literary figures including WH Auden and Dylan Thomas.
Meanwhile, in an Easter message which is published in today’s edition of The Yorkshire Post, the Bishop of Ripon, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has highlighted how the coronavirus pandemic has brought communities together.
She writes: “There hasn’t been much joy, it seems. Yet, in the midst of everything that has happened this past year, we have seen kindness, compassion and a profound appreciation for people and neighbours we might not have viewed with such thought before.”