Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ 175 -- July 28, 2019

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Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ was born 175 years ago today, on 28-July-1844.  In 1866, he converted to Roman Catholicism.  In 1868, he became a Jesuit novice.  He was ordained in 1877. Most of his poems were not published until long after he died in 1889.

I first read  his poetry while I was in high school and I enjoyed his unorthodox style.

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.