Pied Poem Analysis

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The word pied refers to something having two or more colors, like the dappled hings and couple-colour mentioned in the first two lines. The first line announces God 's glory and links it to dappled things, that is things that have spots of a different shade, tone, or color, and the hyphen at the end of the line sets up a list that is to follow. First come the “skies of couple color” with the first use of alliteration, introducing the musical quality that will be so important in the poem. The simile comparing the sky to a brinded cow suggest that, by couple-colour, Hopkins is referring to a sky dotted with clouds, an image that makes sense in terms of beauty because I completely blue sky can have no depth and in looking at it you lose all focus and perspective. Add some clouds and …show more content…

Indeed, without difference there is no beauty, and for Hopkins, to praise beauty is to praise God. In the third line, Hopkins moves from the enormous image of the sky, to the tiny, shiny detail of the scales on a trout, but Hopkins does not use the word scales. To him, they are “rose-moles,” a much richer image which gives us their color and the second use of a compound word in the poem, after “couple-colour.” Such compound words are crucial to the poem and they themselves are acts of creation, as though through careful observation of God 's creation the poet himself is inspired to create. These compound words also embody the principal Hopkins explores throughout the poem: that the combination of two distinct things, in this case words,can form something beautiful when combined. The word stipple also suggest and artistic effect the hinting at God as an artist and the world his work. In the fourth line, we see more compound words with “fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls,” which allude to the beauty of a just-opened chestnut with its intense shine recalling the brightness of burning

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