Lyric Poem · Nature
Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins · 1877
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.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins — quilloak.com/poems/pied-beauty
Quick facts
- Poem
- Pied Beauty
- Poet
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
- Published
- 1877
- Length
- 11 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Short Poems
- Themes
- Nature, Inspirational, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 11 lines · 2 stanzas of 5–6 lines
- Line length
- Lines run 8-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Gerard Manley Hopkins1844–1889
- Source record
- PoetryDBPied Beauty by gerard-manley-hopkins, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1877
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 87ff3add829d66f6…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Keep reading
Bright Star
John Keats · 1819
14 lines · sonnet
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe · 1599
24 lines · lyric
The Old Pond (haiku)
Matsuo Bashō · 1686
3 lines · haiku