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.