Musical Dappling & Nature’s Majesty: Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Good day, Seized readers.  Today, I will be sharing reader Lou Gordh’s favorite poem, “Pied Beauty,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This is perfect timing for showcasing the work of one of the finest musicians of verse and for a brief foray into the nature of creating music in verse. Thank you, Lou, for offering this 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.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins, 
1844–1889 

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Like the Romantic and Victorian poets of the 19^th century, Gerard Manley Hopkins was moved by the beauty of nature. His poetry reflects a reverence and an awe of nature’s grandeur, a “marriage of nature and religion” according to the Poetry Foundation biographical profile. Hopkins would go on to be ordained as a Jesuit priest. Influenced by his devout Anglican and precocious family of artists, musicians and scholars, he absorbed the color and life of the natural world and incorporated music and word-play into his verse. His father and his brother, Lionel, loved puns, jokes, and parodies. So, to be in the Manley Hopkins household wasn’t necessarily to be surrounded by a solemn, Puritanical mood! Hopkins, deservedly, is considered one of the greatest poets of the Victorian Era.

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Dapple Verse with Music

If the message and flickering-light effect of the nature images in “Pied Beauty” fail to uplift you, the music of this verse may make you flutter butterfly-like or skip like a child chanting a jump-rope jingle!

A marvelous attribute of beautiful verse is its musicality.  Poems that are musical have a song-like quality. While we’re all familiar with rhyme and perhaps meter to a lesser degree which Hopkins uses in an admirable, unforced way in “Pied Beauty,” there are other elements at play here that create an echoing ripple of song in both stanzas.

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How does a poet create music in verse? Consistent meter and rhyme can make a poem sing. However, word choice and word placement within the line are the critical components for making a musical poem.

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Notice the instances where consonants are repeated at the beginning of words. Both stanzas burgeon with alliteration: “Glory” and “God;” “couple-colour,” “cow,” and “chestnut-falls;” “fresh-firecoal,” “finches’,” “fold,” “fallow,” “fickle,” “freckled,” and “fathers-forth,” etc. When you speak this poem out loud, you will hear how these beginning consonants announce themselves, folding into each word and creating a rich resonance, like the echo of gulls winging over the sea.

Photo by Diana Ewell Engel

But, there is more! If the alliteration of beginning consonants creates a returning wave of sound, there are also internal vowels and consonants that Hopkins artfully repeats. When repeating soft and long or staccato-short “o,” “a,” “e,” and “i” sounds, Hopkins is employing assonance, the repetition of vowels within each word. The best examples are “couple-color” and “rose-moles;” “brinded,” “stipple,” “finches,” and “fickle;” “dappled” and tackle.” The repeating long vowels convey a fullness, and the short vowels such as the “i” are the clip-clop of the poem’s momentum.

The repetition of internal, hard sounding consonants prevents this poem from lapsing into a drowsy lullaby. Consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds within nearby words is at work here: “trout,” “trades,” “trim,” “strange,” for instance, repeat the dental “tr” sound.

Clever Hyphenation; Gorgeous Word Choice

Hopkins is known for his hyphenation, and in “Pied Beauty,” his hyphenated words dovetail beautifully with his theme of a dappled world where more than one color or design is present in living things. Notice these pairings: “couple-colour,” “fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls” (I love this one! The comparison of chestnuts to firecoal is spot-on, and these pairings make music in the ears and a vivid image in the mind), and “fathers-forth.”

Ultimately, to create music in verse, a poet must carefully choose words that make melody when placed together and put into a harmonious arrangement within lines. Not as simple nor as difficult as it may sound : ).

Share your questions and comments about “Pied Beauty” in the Comments bubble.

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How to Craft Musical Verse

Just as learning how to play an instrument requires patient practice, crafting musical verse calls for your time and practice as well as intentionally listening to the sounds of words to discern and absorb their music.

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The best way to infuse your verse with more music is to read musical verse.

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When we take the time to read fine poetry, the melodies seep into our minds. All great poets write musical verse, but some poets are more noteworthy in their musicality than others. Along with Gerard Manley Hopkins, there is a more contemporary poet, Amy Clampitt, whose verse is stunning in its musical quality. I cherish my volume of her collected poems. I also recommend another twentieth-century American poet, Richard Wilbur, whose visual and musical verse may turn you into a poetry aficionado : ).

Photo by Diana Ewell Engel

Word notebooks are great tools. Carry one with you and write down the interesting sounding words you come across in your daily life. Think of collecting words as collecting game tokens; it’s genuinely fun ,and over time, this gathering activity will increase your vocabulary and help enliven your writing. The simple act of writing down the word and its definition will help you remember it and make that word part of your vocabulary.

Finally, be playful when you write! Let go of your rigid-perfectionistic internal editor and allow your words to freely roam the page. You’re not being graded on your writing; this is for your pleasure and growth, so have at it. Make nonsense words. Make hyphenated words like Gerard Manley Hopkins did. Playfulness can lead to originality and a beautiful poem.

Reply back with your musical verse OR your favorite poem, and I will post it.

What’s Coming

In my next post, I will share one of my favorite poems—a beautiful piece of verse with some stunning musical word choices.  Curious? Look for my Seized substack post coming your way next week!

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