Dappled Things

Glory be to God for poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins and Christina Rossetti whose inspiration rises from their vision of the divine! I'm reading both poets' collected works this semester in a one-on-one class with Dr. Head.

You just can't do any better than Hopkins' "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.

Did you know there's a literary journal inspired by this poem? I love Dappled Things' mission statement because it expresses so well what this poem, and really, what life itself, is all about.

(I fancy naming a lop-eared spotted rabbit after G. H. Hopkins someday; I wonder if he'd mind?)

Image:
Richard Buckner (1812-1883)
The Pet Rabbit
Oil on canvas
1983 x 30 inches (5037 x 76.2 cm)
Private collection
ArtRenewal.org