tempus fugit

I’m no longer a churchgoer in the real sense of the word, but I like to visit a church when no one else is around. As readers of my journal will know, I always make a pilgrimage to St Margaret’s in Buxted when I’m down in Sussex. The heavy wooden door is always unlocked, and when I lift the latch and swing it open, the combined scents of must and furniture polish are somehow very comforting. I sat for a while in the small side chapel, which has a war memorial and several small memorials to children who died in the 1920s and 30s. There is also this beautiful long kneeler, stitched by women from the local WI for the Milennium and showing some of the history of the past 1000 years. It begins (see extra) with a tree being chopped down as Boc-stede (the place of beech trees) was cleared for habitation, and ends with a tree being planted in the new Community Woodland. The eagle eyed among you may notice a couple of needles on the kneeler from the Christmas tree which stood in this corner when I was here last. Now it’s branches have been stripped, its trunk sawn in two, made into a cross and covered in wire, waiting for Easter Sunday when it will be covered with flowers. 

As I sat musing on all this, the passing of the seasons and the years, the phrase came into my head « generations have trod, have trod, have trod » Here is the full poem in all its glory:

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.

There is also a yew tree outside the church which has been dated to over 2000 years of age. Amazing that it has stood here while over 80 generations of people have lived and died. Somehow I find that very comforting, too.