On A Dappled Monday

Pied Beauty


by Gerard Manley Hopkins


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.


What a wonderful poet was Hopkins, a conflicted, sometimes tortured human being. Sadly, he destroyed many of his own poems. I'm glad some survived. I love the way he loves God.

Observing his life shows what a thief guilt can be. Sad, how so many people are torn up over "sin" when that's exactly the point of Good News. Forget all this preoccupation with sin. Live! We are created, and recreated, to live.

Think I'll go find me some chestnuts.