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.

Form

Pied Beauty is one of three of Hopkins’ poems which applies his invented “curtal sonnet.” The curtal sonnet is a ten-and-a-half line sonnet, with a proportionally shrunken structure of a Petrarchan sonnet. The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet are replaced by the first six lines of the curtal sonnet; the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet into the last four-and-a-half lines of a curtal sonnet. The rhyme scheme can be seen as ABCABCDEBDE (source). Advocating originality and contradiction, the application of the curtal sonnet, with the musicality of repeated sounds (e.g. dappled, stipple, tackle, fickle, freckled, a dazzle), exemplifies the main idea in Hopkins’ piece: the harmony of diversity to create a coherent whole (source).

Analysis
The poem, “Pied Beauty,” by Hopkins was written in the middle of his poetic career, before his depression crippled him and his poetry. This poem is celebrating the beauty of “pied things” with Hopkins attributing the existing beauty to God.This poem demonstrates Hopkins devotion to religion and his admiration of all things that God created. Hopkins describes the different colors and patterns on the trout, the finch’s wings, and the different colors in the sky to showcase the beauty in nature. Not only are these pied beings beautiful but they also represent change. The movement of the bird, the movement of the sky, and even the changes to the landscape show that everything exists to be forever changing.Hopkins is celebrating this change and the idea that you can see these changes for a moment until they are changed again, a truly remarkable experience. The sense of change or “flux” is also exemplified by the technique that Hopkins uses, compound words. These words are able to combine two different things or ideas and even the words seem to change or be in flux. An example of this technique used in the poem is when “tackle” turns to “fickle” which then turns to “freckled.” The words changing represent the change that Hopkins sees and admires in nature.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Translation

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?”

The world is charged with God’s presence, becoming momentarily visible like shards of refracted light off a moving piece of foil. But despite his definitive presence in the world, people no longer heed to his authority.

“Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.”

As human life becomes more contemporary, people are becoming lost in the repetitiveness of labor. Additionally, the prioritization of industry and economics over spiritualization has converted the natural landscape, severing the physical connection between God, his natural presence, and his people.

“And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”

Despite all of alienation, nature/God never ceases to present its spiritual flashes. The “freshness” confirms God’s power, seen through the morning waiting through the dark night. Finally, God watches over and protects the world, insuring the rebirth of each day.

Form

Unlike the above poem, “God’s Grandeur” follows the traditional Petrarchan sonnet (aka the italian sonnet). The two stanzas are characterized by an argumentative shift, first noting that God’s presence is like an electrical current, which is being forgotten by the prioritization of industry, then shifting to the thought that despite the downfall of the Victorian world, God’s presence still watches over everything like a mother hen.

Instead of implementing his sprung rhythm meter for which he is known, Hopkins follows more closely to the conventional iambic pentameter form. The rhyme scheme is noted as such: ABBAABBACDCDCD. The emphasis of the question presented in the fourth line of the poem is urgently highlighted with the double BB stressed syllables (oil, foil) in lines two and three (source).

Marissa I really like what you’ve done here. This is a really interesting and thorough analysis of these poems, and the form explanation at the bottom of the page was very helpful.
-Melinda