Pied Beauty (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

I do love this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I love the almost ridiculous over-(?)use of alliteration and the dizziness all that sound creates. I love how the wall of intense sound, the can't-cut-your-way-through-because-it's-so-tangled sound breaks only for the last line which was the impetus for Hopkins to write the whole thing: "Praise him."

The whole poem is a prayer of praise. I like how Hopkins' pure joy at the natural world around him is expressed. You (or rather I) can't read this poem without 1.) feeling a little baffled 2.) feeling happy.

I feel a little baffled since this poem doesn't ever (until the end) take a pause for a breath. He just throws adjective after adjective at you until all you are left with is not really a semblance of understanding, but rather a canvas full of brightly splattered paint and scribbles. It takes a second read-through for me to be able to distinguish shapes in that canvas.

But when I do, I cannot help but feel happier. It's hard not to feel happy when surrounded by or reading about people as supremely happy as N is in this poem. Ecstatically happy. And the fact that he is so intensely happy because of fish and songbirds and a cow? The depth he finds in those simple joys is enough to make anyone (er, me) break out in the hugest smile.

Favorite line: "GLORY be to God for dappled things—"