Pied Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

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.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Lifted From The No

My friend sent me the text of the poem "i thank you God for most this amazing" by ee cummings.  In a way, it's a kind of counterpart to "Pied Beauty," by Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poem that informs this blog.

The cummings poem is short, so I'll include it in its entirety:

i thank you God for most this amazing


i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Although this is Monday's post, I'm actually writing it on Sunday, and it seems like a Sunday kind of poem.  Perhaps especially a Mother's Day Sunday kind of poem.  Having children surely makes one feel like a "human merely being."  But certainly the natural world, the infinite yes, our connection to the illimitably earth, is part of our rescue.  Perhaps even, our salvation?  Don't you feel, in the garden, that the ears of your ears are awake and the eyes of your eyes are opened?

No comments:

Post a Comment