Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pied Beauty

by 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 àll tràdes, 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.

carnivale squash
Photo taken by Flickr.com user Art Siegel
November 25, 2008
Creative Commons License

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Listen to Richard Austin’s excellent recitation of Pied Beauty..

Other Hopkins poetry