Gerard Manley Hopkins, “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 – “Pied Beauty” from The Major Works

19th Century, Animals, British Poetry, Daily Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Nature, Religious

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3 responses

luisa zambrotta

April 21, 2024 at 5:59 am

Such a great poem!

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Jennifer Mugrage

April 22, 2024 at 8:20 pm

I love Hopkins’ cacophony.

In a book by a psychologist (I think The Road Less Traveled), there was a patient to whom this poem had been very important when he was younger.

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Tim Miller

April 29, 2024 at 10:04 pm

I’ll be honest that it’s hard to find single poems of GMH’s that land completely for me. Thankfully this is one. But sometimes they’re such a cacophony that the poems spin right off the table & onto the floor. …but even so, it’s great to think of somebody with such a weird sound emerging when he did. He clearly couldn’t help it.

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#220: The working poor and a so-so murder show – Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 3/9/26: Tonight, I read from Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2001 book Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. After that, I talk about the recent TV show The Killing, as a way in to talking about our obsession and desire for criticism, objectivity, and certainty. Isn’t privacy and the subjective more fruitful? Both parts of this episode are related to essays in my book Notes from the Grid.What is your equivalent of these passages? Email me or send an audio file to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com, and I may use it in an upcoming episode.The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”

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#220: The working poor and a so-so murder show – Human Voices Wake Us

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