Springtime Spirituality
Here are a couple poems that seem to fit the time of year. Written in the 19th c., a few preliminary definitions might be worth glancing at: vernal is green; brinded is striped; stipple is spotted; “landscape plotted and pieced” refers to how adjacent fields can have that kind of checkerboard look according to what’s cultivated, or not being cultivated; "trades" refers to kinds or types of work.
The ones I missed – that’s because I don’t know exactly what they mean either...
This first is excerpted from William Wordsworth’s The Tables Turned. Wordsworth is a leading nature poet writing in the early 19th century. He's basically saying that you can learn more about certain kinds of things from going for a walk in the woods than from other people.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Because some of the language in this next one is archaic and Hopkins even had a tendency to make up words sometimes, it helps to start off with a general idea of what he's up to here: giving thanks, enjoying, and really reveling in all the variety of colors, shapes, movements, and even tastes that are found in life.
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 plow;
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.
G.M. Hopkins
The ones I missed – that’s because I don’t know exactly what they mean either...
This first is excerpted from William Wordsworth’s The Tables Turned. Wordsworth is a leading nature poet writing in the early 19th century. He's basically saying that you can learn more about certain kinds of things from going for a walk in the woods than from other people.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Because some of the language in this next one is archaic and Hopkins even had a tendency to make up words sometimes, it helps to start off with a general idea of what he's up to here: giving thanks, enjoying, and really reveling in all the variety of colors, shapes, movements, and even tastes that are found in life.
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 plow;
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.
G.M. Hopkins
Posted by Paul at 11:36 AM Permalink
14 Comments:
As for Mr. Hopkins, I may have to give hima thought or two...
I'll have to see if I can add some context for that first one too... I forget I was an English major - also, I focused on 19th c. British. Given that there are so many millions of us with that highly, uh, useful degree, you take things for granted that people who might have majored in things that correspond to real life jobs might not be familiar with!
2:37 AM
it is one,it runs
from the end of april
to the start of june,
it burns with summer noon.
Hot and dusty, dry
the land is.
cold and clean is
6 months away.
lol :)
i loved the poems...these olden days guys really knew how to write :)
That's a topic I've been thinking about maybe posting on too, maybe we'll be in synch.
HAZZBUZZ: It usually had that kind of effect on me and it looks like a lot of us.
VISHESH: You guys have a different weather pattern over there! But actually there seems to be less and less of a pattern anywhere with the global warming.
Yeah, what I happen to have read of the 19th c. - mainly British and Russian literature - has really impressed me too.
Poetic freedom, literally.
I tell myself he'll appreciate it someday!
Spring is especially inspiring, isn't it?
LIZARD P: Or as GM Hopkins might say "Nothing is so beautiful as spring..." I think that's the first line of another poem of his called Spring. If I'd thought of it, I should have posted that one, DUH!
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