Herbert’s “Justice” (Part One) (GH #35)

As I was looking for a sample George Herbert poem to practice analyzing with my class this semester, I came across a little-known, short poem called “Justice (1).”* Contrary to what one might expect of a poem by that name, Herbert’s “Justice” opens with the speaker’s complaints about God’s seeming injustice to him. The poem then takes a confessional turn as the speaker realizes that he has been the one acting unjustly toward God:

I cannot skill of these thy wayes.

Lord, thou didst make me, yet thou woundest me;

Lord, thou dost wound me, yet thou dost relieve me:

Lord, thou relievest, yet I die by thee:

Lord, thou dost kill me, yet thou dost reprieve me.        

                           But when I mark my life and praise,        

                           Thy justice me most fitly payes:

For, I do praise thee, yet I praise thee not:

My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray:

I would do well, yet sinne the hand hath got:

My soul doth love thee, yet it loves delay.        

                           I cannot skill of these my wayes.

Pre-Raphaelite window, Huntington Library, CA

  

In “Justice (1),” Herbert demonstrates his skill in creating a deceptively simple, yet densely rich, poem about his lack of “skill” in understanding the justice of God’s “wayes” with him.

To begin, the poem is deceptively simple. It’s quite short (12 lines), a majority of the words are monosyllabic, and the frequent repetition of words or phrases adds to this simplicity.

The first stanza, where the focus is on the Lord’s actions (“Lord, thou dost”), contains smooth, winding parallelism in lines 2-5. For instance, the end of line 2 about wounding is picked up at the beginning of line 3, and then the end of line 3 is revisited at the beginning of line 4.** In the italicized portions of both stanzas, each line is divided into half lines via a compound sentence and a comma. (This strong break in the middle of the line is called a “caesura.”)

The repeated beginnings of lines 2-5 (“Lord, thou”) and their interwoven parallel lines create a smooth flow, marred only by the meter of lines 3 and 5. The smoothness of the first stanza suggests that the Lord’s actions have been constant, or at least consistent, toward the speaker. Lines 3 and 5 have in common that they are the “positive” actions of God toward the speaker: relieving and reprieving (as opposed to wounding and killing/causing the speaker to die). Unlike the smooth pentameter of lines 2 and 4, these two lines have an extra syllable. I suggest that Herbert prolongs the lines here to emphasize how God prolongs the speaker’s suffering by offering him times of relief, only to wound him again later.

While the two stanzas may at first glance look similar, there is a significant alteration in form between the two. For instance, while the parallelism and half-lines remain (lines 8-11), the interweaving ceases in stanza 2, where the poet’s focus is no longer on the Lord’s actions, but on his (the speaker’s) own failures. At last, he evaluates himself, his “life and praise” (6). The “straightforward” lines (e.g., “My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray” [9]) seem to indicate Herbert’s speaker is finally being “straight,” or honest, with himself: he has not been living up to expectations, and indeed his sense of “justice” has “strayed” (9), or been off the “mark” (6).

I’m only halfway done with my analysis of “Justice (1),” having looked at form, but hardly at content. Like the Psalmist, Herbert’s speaker cries out to the Lord with his grief and his grievances. Living in our finite moment in time, how can we understand the Lord’s greater purposes, His infinite “wayes”? Herbert’s little poem reminds us in those times of trial to “mark” ourselves before we question the appropriateness of God’s justice. ***

To be continued. . . .

  

* Because Herbert gave the same titles to several poems in The Temple, editors have added numerals after the titles (based on the order in which the poems appear) to create a clear differentiation between the poem titles. For instance, Herbert has two poems called “Justice,” five called “Affliction,” and so forth. Sometimes the poems are clearly related, as when “H. Scriptures (2)” immediately follows “H. Scriptures (1),” but sometimes the only relationship might be a loose thematic connection. 

** See Herbert’s “The Wreath” for another example of interwoven lines.

*** Just another reminder to students (and others) that all written work contained in my blog, unless otherwise indicated, is my intellectual property and to be cited accordingly. Thank you.