Symbol Analysis
"Pied Beauty" is a "hymn to creation." It argues that the wonders and mysteries of nature provide ample reasons to praise and glorify God. The poem reads like a prayer. It ends with the speaker urging us to get on the bandwagon and join him in praise.
- Line 1: "Glory be to God" alludes to the beginning of prayers, particularly prayers that are based on the Biblical Psalms.
- Line 8: A rhetorical question in parentheses makes the point that no one knows how or why the world is "freckled" with so many diverse and mixed things.
- Line 10: We don't know enough theology to say whether this is actually a metaphor, but we'll point it out anyway. God's relationship to creation is compared to a father and his children.
- Line 11: The speaker talks to someone who can't respond, which is called apostrophe. In this case, that "someone" is us, the reader. He wants us to "praise" God.