Poetry Day

As this is Poetry Day I want to share my favourite poem. When I was a small child I had freckles scattered across my nose and on my cheeks above the bones. I hated them, but my Dad called them sun-kisses, and tried to reassure me by reading this poem by Gerard Manley-Hopkins. It’s called 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 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