The poem opens with a prayerful offering: ‘Glory be to God for dappled things’. The following lines are variations on the “dappled” themes, drawing our attention to the variegated patterns and beauty of the natural world. The tone is one of wonder, delight and devotion; the meter is irregular, though it clearly draws on the “sprung rhythm” Hopkins is best known for. There is, strictly speaking, a rhyme scheme (ABCABC DBCDC), though it isn’t drawn from any particular traditional form.
The opening sestet begins with praise of God, followed by praise of the splendor of his creations. The final five lines of the poem are an inversion of this order: Hopkins begins with evoking the wonder and strangeness of nature and then comes full circle, tracing it back to God, the Creator.
The descriptive language of the concluding section, essentially a series of adjectives, is more abstract, since though the language itself is concrete the adjectives aren’t attached to any particular object. This descriptive passage culminates in a series of opposites (“swift, slow; sweet, sour…”), recasting these apparent oppositions as a harmony achievable only by a being “whose beauty is past change.” Hopkins concludes by calling for all, including, implicitly, the reader, to praise God and appreciate the multifarious beauty of his creations.
