"God's Grandeur And "Leda and the Swan"

Relationships between humans and the Divine have been the subject of many authors writings, in fact the very first text ever published was the Bible; the most comprehensive link between the Divine and humans. History is full of examples of people trying to define their relationship with the Divine or lack there of, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love..." (Psalm 51:1). In the poems, "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins and "Leda and the Swan" by William Butler Yeats, humans relationships with the Divine is explored. In these poems we see an attempt to capture the obscurity, beauty and knowledge that are ever present in human beings relationships with the Divine. Hopkins and Yeats use a variety of method to express these views and in many ways differ in their attempts to capture this special relationship, but essentially they are trying to explain the same thing: the interconnection between the Divine and humans.

In many aspect human and Divine relationships are very obscure, since it is often difficult to remain faithful when God does not appear to be apparent in every day life. Hopk

MacKenzie, Norman H. A readers guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins. Thames & Hudson. London. 1981.

Along with danger and benevolence; beauty is an overarching theme of the Divine, God is beautiful and so are all his creations. Yeats uses the image of a swan, a bird that is considered beautiful, to represent the Divine in his poem. Though this swan does something terrible, it is still described with language that we would not typically associate with a rape. The language is indicative of something more, something special and in a sense, beautiful. The use of a swan for the impregnator is deliberate: "The issue is between Christianity, the Holy Ghost as the Dove of procreative Divinity; and the Classical, Swan as Jove the impregnator" (Vendler, 1963, p. 105). Yeats calls into question our typical view of who and what God is. This poem is as much a commentary on how Christianity views God as it is a tale of ancient Greece and the ancient God Zeus. Contrary to this, Hopkins underlines the beauty of God's undying love for humankind. "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" (Hopkins). These final three lines of the sestet are, "a vision of dawn, the physical sequence suggesting the hope of a religious rebirth" (MacKenzie, 1981, p. 66). We are again given a vision of the Divine being some type of bird like creature, with Hopkins reference to "wings". We also see that this Divine spirit is with us even in our "bent" ways. The use of the word bent gives a double connotation, we get the image of this Divine spirit above the Earth, in space, looking over us. It also points out the crookedness of humanity, or the warped path humanity has taken. Despite all of our misgivings, Hopkins depicts the beauty of the Lord as ever present, no matter how "bent" our path becomes. In this final tercet Hopkins is providing an answer to David's Lamentation, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning" (Psalm 22:1). Hopkins is stating that God is never far he is always there watching over us. This, according to Hopkins, is the true beauty of the Lord, He is ever present in our lives.

Our relationships with the Divine are often difficult to articulate or describe. Gerard Manley Hopkins and William Butler Yeats, try to formulate these feelings in their poems, "

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Approximate Word count = 1648
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)