Pied Beauty

Written by poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1877, “Pied Beauty” was published posthumously in 1918 in the Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins collection. Comprised of 11 lines of various lengths, “Pied Beauty” showcases several of Hopkins’s own poetic inventions, including the curtal sonnet form and sprung rhythm. As well as being a prime example of Hopkins’s technical and alliterative poetic abilities, “Pied Beauty” is also deceptively simple thematically. On the surface, Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty” praises the natural world’s visual beauty and diversity, but Hopkins’s turn near the end of the poem also presents a powerful, contrasting image of God’s everlasting bloom.

Poet Biography

Born in Stratford, Essex in July of 1844, Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and writer who used his gift for prosody to craft powerful, affecting poems that praised God through an intense focus on the beauty and majesty of the natural world. Hopkins was the oldest of at least nine children born to Catherine and Manley Hopkins, and upon birth, he was christened in the Anglican Church in Stratford. Hopkins’s family was religiously involved and had strong ties to the Anglican Church, and his father and uncle also served in political roles connected to the Hawaiian Kingdom.

As a young man, Hopkins wanted to be a painter and spent a lot of time working to perfect visual artforms. This attention to visual detail later informed much of his poetic work. Hopkins attended Oxford, where he met other famous English poets, such as Robert Bridges and Walter Pater, and it was during that time that he decided to convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. Hopkins’s conversion led to his estrangement from many of his family members and friends. Hopkins became Catholic in 1866 and later decided to enter the Jesuit priesthood, taking vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity in 1870. Hopkins initially warred with himself, believing that his interests in poetry, art, and beauty detracted from his religious devotions; however, he eventually reconciled this belief and decided that all of his interests and religious devotions should come together, strengthening his devotion to Christ and the Church by writing unpublished verses.

Some early rejections of his poetic work caused Hopkins to doubt his poetic sensibilities, and while he continued to write, most of his poems were only published after his death. He spent his later years living the difficult life of a Jesuit. He also taught Latin and Greek at several universities during that time, even starting The Newman Society at the University of Oxford for Catholic students attending the school. Hopkins never fully integrated his love for poetry with the humility and quietude required of his religious service, therefore, many of his poems remained unpublished upon his early death at age 44 in Dublin, Ireland.

Poem Text

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “Pied Beauty.” 1918. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

“Pied Beauty” opens with praise for God. The speaker gives special attention to the natural world, mentioning specifically “dappled things” (Line 1) and skies the color of “a brinded cow” (Line 2). The word “dappled” (Line 1) here refers to things that are spotted in color, and “brinded” (Line 2) is an archaic word that generally possesses the same meaning as “brindled,” a more modern word used to describe animals with patchy colorations of fur or skin. The speaker then goes on to describe other spotted or multicolored animals, such as speckled trout and “finches’ wings” (Line 4). Towards the end of the first stanza, the speaker turns his attention to the natural landscape, describing it as “plotted and pieced” (Line 5), or varied in constitution and color.

At the start of the second stanza, Hopkins states: “All things counter, original, spare, strange; / Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)” (Lines 7-8). The “fickle, freckled” (Line 8) variation of the natural world makes it all the more lovely. Finally, the poem’s volta, or turn of thought, answers the question posed earlier in the poem: “(who knows how?)” (Line 8). The speaker explains that all of the lovely, spotted beauty of the natural world comes from someone or something that is immutable and beyond change or variation himself: “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: / Praise him” (Lines 10-11). Hopkins reminds the reader that God is responsible for all lovely, “strange” (Line 7), and unusual things, and he gives the reader the simple, powerful command to “Praise him” (Line 11).