Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen
justa loquar ad te: quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c. (Jerem. xii 1.)
1Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
2 With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
3 Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
4Disappointment all I endeavour end?
5Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
6 How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
7 Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
8Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
9Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
10 Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
11With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
12 Them; birds build -- but not I build; no, but strain,
13Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
14 Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991): 343. PR 4803 H44A6 1991 Robarts Library
First publication date:
1918
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14
Composition date:
1889
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd
Other poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
