Thou art indeed just, lord, byGerard Manley Hopkins
I would like to introduce one of my favourite poems. It is based on the Latin translation of Jeremiah 12:1. It is, in my opinion, the most poignant and sad poem in our language. Hopkins manages to write in the strict sonnet form, a form that can be so artificial, and yet he is able to express his feelings and thoughts in an intensity that is almost searing in its power. Art and feeling combine to make a satisfying artistic whole.
It is the plea and cry of a desperately sincere man, who towards the end of his life, finds his life and religion so empty and disappointing. Perhaps the struggles he had with his sexuality and the rigours of his life as a Jesuit produced a suffocating legalism that almost drove his to despair. The last line contains a prayer that every Christian understands: "Mine, O Thou Lord of life, send my roots rain"I would like to introduce one of my favourite poems. It is based on the Latin translation of Jeremiah 12:1. It is, in my opinion, the most poignant and sad poem in our language. Hopkins manages to write in the strict sonnet form, a form that can be so artificial, and yet he is able to express his feelings and thoughts in an intensity that is almost searing in its power. Art and feeling combine to make a satisfying artistic whole.
My advice is; read the poem aloud several times in order to understand the inversion and the intense brevity of his style
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,
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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
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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.
Yes one senses the cry of despair.
ReplyDeleteHello from Southern California! I am a friend of Barbara's and have come by to visit your new blog. I hope you will find blogging to be a satisfying endeavor. It has certainly proved such for me; I dove in about two years ago and have never regretted it. That's how I met Barbara.
ReplyDeleteGerard Manley Hopkins! I only discovered him in recent years and this particular poem is new to me. But what a powerful cry it is. Did he ever feel that rain he so desperately asks for? When one thinks of Julian of Norwich or Brother Lawrence and the joy and love they felt from God and wrote about, it is quite sad to believe that GMH would have spent his years so full of despair.
Hopkins was a convert to the Oxford Movement, which tried to get the English church back to catholic tradition. Many fought it because to them it seemed a relapse into legalism and ritualism. Its leader, John Henry Newman, became a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church.
ReplyDeleteTED: I so love this poem. I believe GMH was articulating his despair like Jeremiah did..."My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the walls of my heart!" (4.19-22 etc) and in doing so raises the subversive question of God's justice in a time of imperial control - where is God's justice 'when the way of the wicked prospers and all who are treacherous thrive' (Jer 12.1) - valid questions for Victorian times and for today, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteLove this stuff and am trying to do the same myself...
Walker