Pied Beauty (Redux)

Always nice to repeat some of Hopkins work:

Glory be to God for dappled things,

For skies of couple-color as a brindled cow,
For rose-moles in stipple** upon trout that swim.

Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls***, finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced---fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, spare, original, 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, 1877

*Pied: Having patches of more than one color; i.e. the "Pied Piper"
**Rose-colored dots or flecks
***Fallen chestnuts, red as burning coals

 

Beside Still Waters

The LORD [Yahweh] is my shepherd; 

I shall not [be in] want. 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 

He leadeth me beside the still waters.** 

He restoreth my soul: 

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; 

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: 

Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. 

----King David; Psalm 23 KJV* 

*I normally don't read the King James Version anymore, but the etched-in beauty of this older version captivated me. 

**Recently revisiting this Psalm (which, actually, is not my "favorite" of the Psalms, unlike many other people), I emphasized the "still waters" and "restoring my soul" because of some great, deep, long-sought but elusive peace which He recently brought to me & which I pray continues through the next leg of life's journey.

David was a shepherd boy who became King of Israel.  He wrote most of the Psalms beautiful songs and poetry.