Thou Art Indeed Just

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad

te: quare via impiorum prosperatur? |&c.| (Jerem. xii 1.)

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend

  With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.

  Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must

Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,

  How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost

  Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust

Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes

  Now, leav{`e}d how thick! lac{`e}d they are again

With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

  Them; birds build — but not I build; no, but strain,

Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

  Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.