PIED BEAUTY

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 pierced - 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.

Gerald Manley Hopkins  (1844 - 1889 )