Thou Art Indeed Just Lord by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
![What are you watching for?](https://i0.wp.com/www.excellence-in-literature.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FrTheWatcher-e1388779663153-162x300.jpg?resize=162%2C300&ssl=1)
“The Watcher”
September 16, 2008
Cropped from original photograph by Flickr.com user Steve Sawyer
Creative Commons License
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.
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, leavèd how thick! lacèd 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.
***