Tuesday Poem: Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins
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 all trades, 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)
I may not be able to share Hopkins' religious faith, but very few poets express the ecstasy of the living earth as well as he does. Coming back from remote British Columbia I have been dazzled by it and I wanted to choose a poem that celebrates the amazing complexity of the natural world.
The Tuesday Poets are an international group who try to publish a poem every Tuesday, wherever they are in the world. If you'd like to see what the others are posting, please click this link to the hub.
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 all trades, 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)
I may not be able to share Hopkins' religious faith, but very few poets express the ecstasy of the living earth as well as he does. Coming back from remote British Columbia I have been dazzled by it and I wanted to choose a poem that celebrates the amazing complexity of the natural world.
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| Skies of couple-colour (photo Fr Silouan Thompson) |
The Tuesday Poets are an international group who try to publish a poem every Tuesday, wherever they are in the world. If you'd like to see what the others are posting, please click this link to the hub.
Love the language of this poem.
ReplyDeleteWith swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: