#3 of 52

I purchased this book a year ago after taking a poetry class in college. G. M. Hopkins was my professor's favorite poet and after reading this book, he is a favorite of mine as well. The book includes poetry, journals, letters, and sermons.

3. Mortal Beauty, God's Grace by Gerard Manley Hopkins

This is my favorite poem by Hopkins, being a dappled thing myself.

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 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.