Pied Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-color 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.

Er, wha-haaaat?? ehhehehhe
  • Praises God
  • beauty that involves a multiplicity of color 
  • beauty by association
  • poet may have a minor obsession with spotted things: 
  1. 'Glory be to God for dappled things' 
  2. 'skies of coupled colors' (blue and white, red and yellow) 
  3. spotted (brinded) cows 
  4. moles on trout 
  5. finches' wings
  6. when a chestnut falls, the color inside is golden and shines through
  7. landscape - textured, plotted, pieced, fold, fallow, plough
*plotted, pieced - human intervention                    } different colors of land
*fold - sheep-pens, fallow - unused, plough - farmed

Nature -> Landscape -> Trades
confusion -> all things differ but stand on their own. They can stand alone or they may be lying around for no reason (or reasons as yet unknown)

whether it changes or remains same, it was created this way, hence all things are beautiful and perfect

11-line "curtal" sonnet 

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