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Unread 10-06-2009, 02:32 PM
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Martin Rocek Martin Rocek is offline
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Another poem that praises the perfection of imperfection is Gerard Manley Hopkin's
"Pied Beauty"; probably it's so well known that everyone is sick of it, but just in
case that is not the case, here it is (despite it's religious professions, I've always
considered it a poem in praise of anarchy):

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 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.
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