What is this life, if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like stars at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
— Leisure by William Henry Davies
We are currently in the Drakensberg, where we take the time, as William H. Davies said, to 'stare as long as sheep or cows'. We have turned 'at Beauty's glance' and followed her as she guided us up steep walkways, beckoning us to cascading waterfalls and magnificent views of undulating lands. We are re-learning to wait for Beauty's smile, watch her feet dance on the dewy grass, and breathe in her deep and intoxicating delight. Keeping our eyes on Beauty hasn't been easy; cares desperately pull us to fixate on them only!
I am glad for the opportunity to escape the madding crowd, to take time and look at a world that 'is charged with the grandeur of God'. It has been a timely reminder that slowing down and reflecting on Beauty takes us to higher plains brooded over by the 'bright wings' of the Holy Spirit.*
* GOD'S GRANDEUR
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.
—Gerard Manley HopkinsI
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