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Mattie Kish Heslip
Hinds
DE British Literature II
5 May 2017
Blake and Hopkins: Imagery of God and Nature
The works of both William Blake and George Hopkins portrayed soft images of nature
and animals to show off the works of God and to also display their affections for God and his
handy work. Blake uses “The Lamb” in his Songs of Innocence to display the naïve side of
religion where all glory goes to God and is upbeat. In Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur,” he gives
vivid imagery that describes the beauty in nature and gives praise to the Lord. Blake gives a
contrasting view in “The Tyger”, which comes from his Songs of Experience, where the reader
sees the darker, more powerful side of God. Nature is where Hopkins connects himself with God
and he uses his imagery in the work to show his awe of the Lord and praise Him for it. Hopkins’
“Carrion Comfort” gives the readers the doubting standpoint that he also writes of in his poetry.
Thus, both authors use the imagery of landscape, love, nature, people, and animals to describe
their religion, as well as using their imagery to portray their doubts and anger towards God.
Franklin Burrough wrote in his poetry review discussing the imagery of nature in
Hopkins poems, specifically “Pied Beauty.” The opening line, “Glory be to God for dappled
things,” is perfect for the rest of the poem. Throughout every line, Hopkins describes each piece
of nature that he incorporated with such vivid detail that the reader’s mind could picture it so
well. He praises God in the little things such as the “rose–moles” on the back of the trout and the
plotted fields of different colors. Burrough views this poem as rather contradictory and also as a
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praise to both God and man. He stated, “The poem starts with God and things – two thoroughly
nondescript nouns from opposite ends of the metaphysical spectrum. The next three lines are all
dappled things, images out of nature – skies, cow, trout, chestnuts, finches’ wings. They are seen
as kaleidoscopically – disconnected and conflated and piecemeal all at once. This is hardly the
expected, stable and stabilizing view of Nature as an evidence of faith.” In his next statement,
Burrough points out that the landscape of Hopkins’ poem depicts that there is beauty in nature
that is created by man. “The landscape is pied and beautiful because of human intervention. It is
plotted – divided into small plots, fields with different crops, hedgerows, and so forth; it looks
pieced together, like a quilt. Fold, fallow, and plough add detail: a fold is an enclosure for
keeping livestock; fallow is a ground left out of cultivation; and plough, as it used here, refers to
