A poem based on JEREMIAH 12:1-4, and my prose paraphrase

THOU ART INDEED JUST

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This poem (1918), by the famous English poet-priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, is a verse paraphrase of JEREMIAH 12:1-4. The poet makes the issues personal. Hopkins is famous for his tortured word order. Of course most poetry uses some degree of transposition (reversed word order) for the sake of rhyme or meter, but Hopkins seemed to use it as an  end in itself, or rather, to express his inner torment. The lines hurt and seem to bleed. So I will give a prose paraphrase of the lines. I make no claim to beauty, just simplicity and brevity:


""You are just, God, so I beg for justice. Why do sinners live well while all I do ends in disappointment? You're my Friend, but if you were my enemy, how could you wound and hurt me more? Those who waste their lives on silly pleasures achieve more than I do. Yet I work hard to please you. I see flowers bloom and spring breezes blow. Birds build nests, but I don't. I'm Nature's freak. I make useless efforts, but accomplish nothing. Please, God, revive my spirit."


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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.

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