Gerard Manley Hopkins

My, how time flies -- already the end of October! I am sitting at home wrapped in a blanket waiting for the furnace repairman to return and take care of my furnace. I appreciate times like these because it is so rare to have previously unscheduled free time. I paid some bills, played some lexulous, and now I am diving in to some Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose work has been recommended by a number of poet-friends as of late, and it is available online, which makes for easy reading. Here's one:


Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

13. 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.

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What a delight to read! Love it.

Off to read some more.