["Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend"]

By Gerard Manley Hopkins
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.

Copyright Credit: Gerard Manley Hopkins, ["Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend"] from Gerard Manley Hopkins: Selected Poetry, ed. by Catherine Phillips (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
 
Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Selected Poetry (Oxford University Press, 1996)