Oh what a beautiful morning!

Today is a lovely day here; after weeks of grey drizzly cool weather, we have a sunshiny day - a perfect one, not too cold, not too hot. A gorgeous Spring day, and on my walk to work this morning I heard birds everywhere, and then church bells. It was a glorious start to the day. And it made me think of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was always so thankful for the beauty of our world.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things,
For skies of couple-color as a brindled 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 all trades, 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.

Gerard Manley Hopkins