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 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.
Sometimes, as I walk this hillside, I recite a piece of verse that captures the moment,
and it’s as if I were connecting to the soul of that poet who wrote the words
(You once experienced this, too, this what I'm experiencing now)
and I continue over the hillside in a kind of shared communion.
The above is Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “Pied Beauty.”
Hopkins is worth spending an afternoon with.
(Those who have read The Legacy of Emily Hargraves may remember that this was a habit of the old caretaker in the cemetery—Or you may not remember.)
