Beauty & Rhythm

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and a bit of a tortured soul who became known after his death in June of 1889 as one of the Victorian era's most influential writers. Hopkins was compelled his entire life to describe the beauty of God's creation through the rhythm and imagery of poetry, although when he converted to Roman Catholicism and joined the Jesuit priesthood in his 20s, he burned all of his poems in a bonfire and did not write again for many years. He believed his passion for poetry deterred him from devoting himself fully to the priesthood, and it took many years and much study before he was able to see the two passions did not need to be in conflict with one another.

Hopkins is known for his sprung rhythm, a running rhyme that ran counter to conventional ideas of metre and poetic rhythm in his era and served as a precursor to free verse. Despite the rules of a religion that he believed served to press down the enthusiasms of life, Hopkins could not help himself. Thankfully he shared much of his poetry with his good friend Robert Bridges, who published the edition Poems after Hopkins' death from typhoid fever at age 44.

Listen to the beauty and rhythm in Hopkins' poem "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.

While the world may feel like a swirl of changing rules, contradictions, and conflict this summer, grant yourself moments when you can stand or sit in awe of God's masterpiece all around you. The natural world presses forward with the beauty of color, contrast, and intricate details, and we too often allow our worldly anxieties to swallow the childlike awe that God has gifted to each of us. Enjoy today -- all that is original, spare, and strange -- and allow yourself to be dazzled by Him.

May you be astonished this week by the majesty of God’s creation, by the peace of the Holy Spirit, and by the presence of the living Savior.

Jennie