By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them

Hard words, Lord Christ! For what good fruits bear I?
For all your care and tending, what my yield?
You gave me to a garden well concealed
and watered me from fountains set on high;
you fertilized me with a wondrous food
and sent a Wind to strengthen and make straight.
How patiently you prune and pollenate
with an expert arborist’s solicitude.
And still my good works fall to earth unfinished,
my produce often stunted, bruised, or dented,
the rot upon my nature’s root augmented
by blights I brought and beauties I diminished.
God grant when I know others by their fruits,
I also recollect how weak their roots.