What is praised in Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Pied Beauty"?

Throughout his work, Gerard Manley Hopkins emphasizes the presence of the divine in creation. Whenever we look around us, thinks Hopkins, we see God in everything. At no point, however, does this mean that he ever romanticizes the natural world. There is a great deal of ugliness in our environment, much of it the product of man's work, his "trade" and "toil" as Hopkins often refers to it. Yet even here, God is still to be found.

In "Pied Beauty," Hopkins emphasizes certain aspects of nature, which on the face of it appear different, unusual, maybe even a little weird:

All things counter, original, spare, strange.

But however odd these fragments of our natural world may seem—the rose moles on the backs of swimming trout, the spotted wings of finches, the landscape divided up into pieces and worked on by the plowman—they are still signs of the presence of God. And we must therefore praise Him for giving us this world in all its beauty, all its astonishing variety, all its strangeness.

 Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Catholic priest who wrote about the wonders of God and nature. His poems often sounded like a hymn to the natural world. 

This poem “Pied Beauty” unconventionally details the unusual aspects of nature: those things that are spotted, freckled, speckled, and variegated. The word pied is defined as multi-colored or particolored.  

1st Stanza

The poet begins by praising God just as he would if he were praying.  He thanks the Lord for the spotted things in nature.  Then he begins to list them:

• The beautiful skies at dawn or sunset that display the oranges and yellows intertwined with the blue skies of the day and compares the coloring to the cows that are spotted.
• The pink spots on the scales of the trout that look as though they have been drawn on to create a special effect.
• The chestnut when it falls and opens up---the nut itself looks like a burning ember of coal [In Hopkins’ England, the reader would have understood about the nut more than the modern one].
• The finches’ wings which are spotted on the underside.

Unexpectedly, the poet turns to the types of land that one might see in the fields:

• The land might be divided into plots for different purposes.
• The piercing would imply that the land has been fenced to separate livestock.
• A fold is a fenced-in area for sheep.
• Fallow land has not been touched.
• The plough would be used to turn over the land for planting.

The speaker then mentions the types of workmen and their equipment, whether it be tackle or using trim.

2nd Stanza

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

Now, the poet wants to thank God by identifying qualities of things and categorizing these unusual items:

Counter—opposing;  original---unique; spare---thin/frugal; strange---extraordinary

He thanks God for anything that is fickle (changeable) or  freckled (regardless how it happens).

He also  includes  opposites: swift –slow; sweet-sour; dazzling—dim.

The deity that has given these beautiful pied parts to nature and made them will never change.  He is constant as the setting sun.

Give thanks to God.

For those of us who have freckles, what a delightful poem to read! It is a reminder that God loves us despite our flaws or spots.

In "Pied Beauty," what is Gerard Manley Hopkins praising?

Employing variations of the mottoes of the Jesuit order to which he belonged--"to the greater glory of God" and "praise to God always"--Gerald Manley Hopkins appears in his abbreviated sonnet to revere the beautiful colors and variety in nature, and by praising the beauty of nature, he praises God, the Creator. However, Hopkins hymn of praise disguises in its controlling metaphor of "pied beauty" things that do not meet the uniformity, standarization, and efficiency lauded in his Victorian age, and thus takes on a tone of protest.

In the fifth line Hopkins moves from an appreciation of variety in nature to "all trades," implying the human and moral aspect.  The lines

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

suggest that diversity among humans is just as beautiful as it is in nature and is created alike by God, and should, therefore be respected and appreciated.  Interestingly, Hopkins applies some adjectives that were used about his poetry:  "original, spare, strange." These oddities, along with his turning of "fickle" and "freckled"  which normally suggest a negative judgment to a positive connotation, are used, instead, as evidence of the infinitude of God's creation.