Thursday, January 27, 2011

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
      For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
            For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
      Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
            And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
      Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
            With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                                                                    Praise him.

~Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889)

2 comments :

  1. Hopkins is not one of my favorite poets, despite DD#2's appreciation of his imagination and style.

    I did, however, read Hurrahing in Harvest mentioned by Esolen early on in the book;

    and I think I got GMH's message.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I haven't read that one yet (I should look it up right now), but I posted this one because it comes up (though not by name) in the next chapter, right near the end. Have you gotten that far yet?

    ReplyDelete

What are your thoughts? I love to hear from you!