Ash Wednesday with Hopkins

Thou art indeed just, Lord

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamenjusta loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur?

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.

In Year 12 Literature, I would be the one down the back of the class pouring over the poems no-one else seemed to want to go near, least of all felt any resonance with. The existential terrors and mountain climbing spiritual intensities of Hopkin’s "Terrible Sonnets" felt like they were written for my soul, my mind, ‘frightful, sheer no-man-fathomed.’ At University we learned to objectify, walk carefully around words; poets were put on pedestals or their work drop kicked through post-modern theories. Favourite poets especially were shattered like glass, swept up, binned and then forgotten. Until years later when unexpectedly chosen to be used for a Lenten reflection, or advertised in a Poets in the Faith series, such as the one coming up for us here at St Peter’s, Eastern Hill this year. Dorothy Lee will be speaking on Gerald Manley Hopkins in March and will unwrap his poetry much more eloquently than I ever can. But once more interest is piqued back to explore, renew a bygone acquaintance long forgot. The ‘dappled things’ and ‘all things counter, original, spare, strange’ can still speak anew.

Thou art indeed just Lord s also amongst those poems chosen for reflection in The Heart’s Time: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter by Janet Morley. This Lenten book has been around since 2011 and I still go back to it. It features this sonnet on Friday of Week 2. Morley has that gift for opening up poems, suggesting helpful pathways through; moving inside, then kaleidascoping the themes out into a wider context. Thou art indeed just Lord is set in Petrarchan form, weighing itself between an argument of its first eight lines, and counter response in the last 6. The epigraph, from psalm 119 in the Latin vulgate, sets the poem clearly from the outset in a religious context. Morley links the poem to voices in the Old Testament such as Job and Jeremiah, prophets of suffering who protest vigorously to God.

But it's the nature of the relationship between the poet and their God which speaks so powerfully for me today. There is protest, lament, perhaps too a self-indulgent despair: ‘why must / disappointment all I endeavour end?’ and excessive anguish over unfulfilled sexual longing, ‘o the sots and thralls of lust.’ But note, not only does the tight structure of the poem keep the voice in check, but the poem is premised on the knowledge that our Lord is ‘O thou my friend.’ And in this friendship there is a great courtesy extended to ‘thou lord of life.’ Twice the poet calls our Lord, ‘sir’, and although the tone is very earnest, from a human point of view it is also very relatable. It pre-empts, for me, the words of the tragic character Tess in Thomas Hardy's, Tess of the d'Urbervilles: ‘Why does the sun shine on the just and the unjust alike?’ (1891). This is a very reasonable question to ask in the spiritual life. It’s one we all pray at some point. Why, after all, do ‘sinners ways prosper’?  Why, especially for some, is it that ‘disappointment all I endeavour end?’ Once, St Teresa in a more jocular tone asked, ‘if this is the way our Lord treats his friends, how then his enemies?’

The second part of the poem extends this relationship to include the recognition of the beauty and fecundity of nature. And this, I believe, is much deeper than the lament of the poet as simply being ‘time’s eunuch.’ Though there is piercing truth in the words: ‘birds build, but not I build’, the very simple admission that despite this inner state, nature is ‘leavèd how thick’ and ‘fresh wind shakes’ affirms the goodness and connection of God in the world.  These words remind us of other sonnets by Hopkins – Pied Beauty where the poet praises, ‘Glory be to God for dappled things…’ In Thou art indeed just Lord to be in this state where ‘disappointment all I endeavour end,’ yet still ‘see’ the beauty in life, and to have the ability to cry out ‘send my roots rain,’ is the essence of the gift and affirmation of a relationship with our Lord which is held in grace.

The ‘justice’ of our Lord may forever remain a mystery in human terms, but God initiates and promises a relationship with Him which has space wide enough and time limitless enough to always bring before Him our private needs, our inner frustrations. God’s love, connecting, comprehensive, non-competing, enables us in times of suffering to ‘see’ the ‘fretty chervil’ whatever they may be for each of us. And thereby is sent the rain that nourishes our souls.

The Heart’s Time: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter by Janet Morley is available in St Peter’s Bookroom. $32.95