Pied Beauty

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

"We Wear the Mask"

We Wear the Mask

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

"The Jabberwocky"

The Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
	Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
	And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
	The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
	The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
	Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
	And stood awhile in thought
And as in uffish thought he stood,
	The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
	And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! and through and through
	The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
	He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
	Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
	He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
	Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
	And the mome raths outgrabe.