"Pied Beauty" is a poem by Victorian poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is a kind of hymn of praise to God that marvels at the varied world that God created. The poem sees God's majesty not just in nature's sheer variety, but also in the labors of humankind and in the abstract categories that people use to understand their experience of the world. The poem was written in 1877 but not published until 1918, and showcases Hopkins's trademark linguistic inventiveness.
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The Full Text of “Pied Beauty”
1Glory be to God for dappled things –
2 For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
3 For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
4Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
5 Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
6 And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
7All things counter, original, spare, strange;
8 Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
9 With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
10He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
11 Praise him.
The Full Text of “Pied Beauty”
1Glory be to God for dappled things –
2 For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
3 For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
4Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
5 Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
6 And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
7All things counter, original, spare, strange;
8 Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
9 With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
10He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
11 Praise him.
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“Pied Beauty” Summary
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“Pied Beauty” Themes
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The Majesty of God
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Pied Beauty”
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Line 1
Glory be to God for dappled things –
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Lines 2-4
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; -
Lines 5-6
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. -
Lines 7-9
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; -
Lines 10-11
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
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“Pied Beauty” Symbols
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The Chestnut
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“Pied Beauty” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Allusion
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Assonance
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Juxtaposition
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Caesura
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Consonance
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End-Stopped Line
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Simile
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Rhetorical Question
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“Pied Beauty” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Dappled
- Couple-colour
- Brinded
- Rose-moles
- Stipple
- Finches
- Plotted and Pieced
- Fold, Fallow, and Plough
- Trádes, Gear, Tackle, and Trim
- Counter
- Fickle
- Fathers-forth
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Pied Beauty”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Pied Beauty” Speaker
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“Pied Beauty” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Pied Beauty”
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More “Pied Beauty” Resources
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External Resources
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How Hopkins Was Ahead of His Time — An interesting article about Hopkins in the British magazine the New Statesman.
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An Actor's Reading — A reading of the poem by actor Michael Graves.
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More Poems by Hopkins — Some of Hopkins's other significant works.
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The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins — A collection of Hopkins's correspondence.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
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