A friend of mine had the first line of this poem as his Facebook status a few days ago. I knew I'd read it before, but couldn't recall the rest, so I had to look it up. (I knew Facebook was good for something!)

I was glad I did. I like both the uncoventional imagery (comparing the sky to a cow!) and the sentiment: celebrating the beauty of "all things original, counter, spare, strange" as opposed to traditional notions of beauty being only what is pure, light, and unspotted.

Because life isn't just a vast meadow of sunshine and flowers. Light mixes with the darkness to create a world of things both dazzling and dim. Sometimes it's that patchwork pattern that's the most beautiful of all.



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.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins