September 5: Autumn Night, Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"

When I got home tonight, I could hear noises from the local high school football game being played.  The stadium's lights were visible in the distance, and the crowd was roaring.  The announcer's voice was echoing, saying something about yard lines or tackles.  And the trees around me were stippled with yellow and orange.

It was a perfect autumn evening.

If you haven't noticed, Gerard Manley Hopkins frequently takes his inspiration from nature.  He sees the handiwork of God in trees and birds and sun and moon.  There's this direct connection to the sacred mysteries of creation in his lines.  But poetry, for Hopkins, is a direct link to prayer and praise, sometimes lament and despair, as well.

Tonight, I give you Hopkins' tribute to autumn.

Saint Marty loves this dappled season.

Pied Beauty

by:  Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things--
     For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
          For rose-moles in all 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.

See any rose-moles?