Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘Pied Beauty’
1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 ….. 5!
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty” is special to me because I included it in my first book, The Joy of Poetry. Specifically, it’s in the chapter titled “Come, Night: old poetry,” which includes a scene from the day before my mom died, a moment of speckled beauty. I sang to her, and she attempted to sing along.
But although I loved this poem, I was intimidated to memorize it. It’s Hopkins! I think Shakespeare’s easier.
On the day I started learning this poem by heart I also read a poem about the common grackle in Bright Wings, an illustrated anthology of poems about birds edited by Billy Collins, with paintings by David Allen Sibley. There are many common grackles in Waco, Texas, where I used to live. I would have described them as black. But Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology says they are dappled, with “glossy-iridescent bodies.” In good light, they sparkle. They also swarm, eat garbage, and bathe themselves in ants. I do not like them, Sam I am. Yet, they are a lot like the things described in this poem — “brinded” cows, trout “all in stipple.” Perhaps the grackles are “freckled” with rainbows — complicated, much like life. My life.
My life is “sweet.” My life is “sour.” I wish the “swift” things would let up and the “slow” things would speed up. My nights are “adazzle;” my days, too often “dim.” Some days I begin as Cinderella in ashes and end as Cinderella at the ball. Some days I am the stepsisters through and through.
I was discussing Cinderella with my original poetry buddy Nancy Franson, with whom I did my original poetry dare, when I decided to look up this poem.
Nancy and I were discussing the latest movie version of Cinderella on Facebook, and she had an explanation for the wicked stepmother and what she called “her appaling daughers.” Nancy wrote, “They probably never had any poetry in their lives.”
No, probably not. Imagine how much nicer things might have been for Cinderella if she and her stepsisters had gathered every morning over porridge to read a poem together. They might not have been so bothered about Prince Charming and his silly ball”
If the stepsisters had been lucky enough to stumble upon this “Pied Beauty,” they would have had all the dancing their tootsies could desire. Because this poem moves like a waltz, around and around for three stanzas: 1-2-3, 1-2-3-, 1-2-3. Then, in the last line, it jumps.
Look at it the line spacing: 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 — then a huge indentation before the final line. Glory be! We are swooped up and twirled over lines 2 and 3, over the not-yet-glimpsed 4 … all the way to 5.
We land oh-so-lightly: “Praise him.”
Bow to your partner.
I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro