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

Dull Praise

Praise be to the poets for pallid things -
   For skies too smooth for Blake’s mad sun to rip,
      For love unmoved as Shakespeare’s silent star;
For couplets clipped and polished slick,
   For urns where breathless lovers are,
      And yawps now pinned like moths in jars.

All things balanced, measured, neat, complete;
   Whatever is gutted, rhymed (who dares ask why?)
      With soft, slow; bright, tight; white, still; wan;
They prune and plane till fuck-all wild remains:
                                Praise them.