'Pied Beauty'

(In the first posting of this poem I inadvertently inserted some numbers....I couldn't let it go at that. It seemed like sacrilege)

"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.
(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

thanks again, jjorge

he is a wonderful poet

I Want the ablility to express so much power with so few words...

Thanks for posting that, jjorge. Hopkins has always been one of my very favorite poets. His 'sprung rhythm' is sooo impossible to imitate without sounding weird. Yet Hopkins never sounds weird at all.

glad you liked it MA. Did you see 'Spring and Fall'? That's by GMH
also as you probably know.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=391

Thank you for guiding me to that site, jjorge. I do know the poem, yes, but it's always good to see things of beauty posted here.

Lovely Hopkins that one, Jjorge.

I have a darker Hopkins somewhere, his struggle with depression and despair. It's somber but very very moving. I'll look for it.

Jjorge, both poems are wonderful. Thank you for posting them.
If you find the other GMH poem you mentioned, please post it. I never tire of them.

Perhaps this, jjorge?

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?

My cries heave, herds-long, huddle in a main, a chief
Woe. world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing --
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked, "No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."

O, the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall.
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! Creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

<That dark wnough for ya??

That is not dark.

Just good.

I loved this poem the first time I saw it (I think you posted it on abuzz once). Awfully nice to see it again. Thanks!

MA

That IS lovely (and dark by my reckoning) thanks for posting it.

It's not the one I had in mind however.

In fact, I've spent the last fort-five minutes looking for my volume of Hopkins' poems. It's not in the book case, it's not in this pile on my computer desk and it's not in the little pile on the kitchen table! Gr-r-r-r where is it?
I'm having this paranoid fantasy that my daughters boyfriend borrowed it when they were house sitting for me last month....(invariably however, my fantasy's of others making off with my things are shown to be false when I FIND the missing item and it's clear that I have misplaced it!)

Maybe I can find the Hopkins poem on the web...a little tricky because I can't remember the name of it.

PS Howdy piffka! bienvenido

Wow...I found it easily! It is: "Carrion Comfort".

I posted it by itself. Here's the link:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=8796#8796

More Poems by GMH
God's Grandeur
Hurrahing in Harvest
Binsey Populars
To bad he had to die at the age of 44 due to Typhoid fever, he is a great poetry writer

Its as if everytime this man talked, it was of great knowledge, what a very brilliant man indeed =)

Hello, Carbonite! Welcome to a2k. Another Hopkins fan? Great. God's Grandeur is a good one. I don't know Binsey Poplars or Hurrahing in Harvest, but I'll go look for them.

I didn't know that Hopkins died of Typhoid fever. I think I knew he'd died young.

Hmmmm. In re-reading this, I have to wonder if Jjorge ever found his book? I was just visiting with him last week and he said:



He'll be surprised & pleased to see that Pied Beauty is alive and well and still loved.

I hope he tells us that he found his Hopkins' volume.


Oh boy, Carbonite, I'm posting one of your poems. I found the German translation! It is wonderful... "very-violet-sweet." Thanks for pointing us on the way, Carbonite. (Come back... bring the Binseys!)


HURRAHING IN HARVEST (Erntejubel)
von Gerard Manley Hopkins

Sommer geht hin; nun, barbarisch in Schönheit, die
Garben stehn
Rings auf; oben hoch, welch Windgang! welch lieblich
Gebaren
Von Seid-Sack-Wolken! Ward wildere,
willendurchwogtere
Mehldrift über Himmel gemodelt je und geschmolzen?

Ich lauf, ich heb auf, ich heb auf Herz, Aug,
Aus all der Glorie in den Himmeln aufzulesen den Erlöser;
Und, Aug, Herz, welche Blicke, Lippen, gaben euch je
Hinreißender Liebe Grüßen echter und runder zurück?

Die azuren verhangenen Hügel sind seine Welt-waltende
Schulter,
Königlich - wie ein Zuchthengst stark, wahrhaft
Veilchen-süß -
All dies, all dies war da, und nur der Betrachter

Fehlte; welche zwéi, wenn sie éinmal sich tréffen:
Kühn und kühner regt Schwingen das Herz
Und schleudert ihm, o halb schleuderts die Erde ihm fórt
unter seinen Füßen.

1963


Hurrahing in Harvest

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love's greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic - as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! -
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.
Vale of Clwyd, Sept. 1, 1877

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hopkins/gmhov.html