Pied Beauty

Pied Beauty

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844–1889)

     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.