The Truth-Teller
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.
Amen.
5 comments:
For some reason reading that poem again just now has reminded me of these lines from Aeschylus...
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God."
....and as we bow before this Aweful and Majestic God, because bow we must, we may choose to say .....
"blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place
though I walk through the wilderness blessed be your name"
Oh yes Carolyn you've found the perfect words...
* Unusually, mad dad remains totally silent! *
Thank you, anonymous. I thought I recognised a kindred spirit in these matters of the soul in your particularly apt poem also...
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