PR 5650 
 .H6 032 
 I Copy 1 
 
 fcis Thompson s 
 
 Hound of Heaven 
 
 A STUDY 
 
 .1. F. X. O'CONOK. S..) 
 
Copyright, 
 
 I 
 
A STUDY OF 
 FRANCIS THOMPSON'S 
 
 Hound of Heaven 
 
 )> 
 
 REV. J. F. X. O'CONOR, S. J. 
 
 ProiesEor of Philosophy, St. Francis Xavier College, N. Y 
 Founder of Brooklyn College, , 
 Editor o[ Autobiography oi St. Ignatius, 
 of Life of St. Aloysius, etc. 
 

 Jltn)irunatur. 
 
 Joseph F. Hanselmann, S.J. 
 
 Jmprimalitr. 
 
 John ifi Cardinal Faui.ev 
 
 JJiI?il ©bfltat. 
 
 Remigius Lafort 
 
 'CU327H72 
 
^ STUDY 
 
 OF 
 
 FRANCIS THOMPSON'S 
 
 HOUND OF HEAVEN 
 
 By Rev. J. F. X. O'Conor, SJ. 
 
 This great poem, strange to say, is comparatively little 
 known. It is the sweetest, deepest, strongest song ever 
 written in the English tongue. 
 
 Among some of the great odes are "Alexander's 
 Feast," Dryden, "Ode on the Nativity," Milton, "Intima- 
 tions of Immortality," Wordsworth. To say Thompson's 
 poem is one of the great odes is to place it unranked 
 among them. In my judgment it is greater. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say with the Bookman that "the 
 Hound of Heaven seems to us, on the whole, the most 
 wonderful lyric in the language. It fingers all the stops 
 of the spirit . . . but under all, the still sad music 
 of humanity," and with the Times, that "people will still 
 be learning it by heart two hundred years hence, for it 
 has about it the unique thing that makes for immortality. 
 It is the return of the nineteenth century to Thomas a 
 Kempis." 
 
 With the Spectator, I ask, "is there any religious poem 
 carrying so much of the passion of penitence — an ode in 
 
 3 
 
the manner of Crashaw, and in the comparison, it more 
 than holds its own." 
 
 With Coventry Patmore I marvel at the "profound 
 thoughts and far«fetched splendor of imagery, qualities 
 which ought to place him in the permanent ranks of 
 fame," while even Burne- Jones cries out "Since Gabriel's 
 Blessed Damosel no mystical words have so touched me 
 as the Hound of Heaven." 
 
 And may we not add the words of G. K. Chesterton, 
 "with Francis Thompson we lose the greatest poetic 
 energy since Browning. In his poetry as in the 
 poetry of the universe, you can work infinitely out and 
 out, but yet infinitely in and in. These two infinities are 
 the mark of a great poet, and he was a great poet." 
 
 "The great poetry of it (The Hound of Heaven) tran- 
 scended in itself and in its influence all conventions," 
 says Wilfrid Meynell, "so that it won the love of a Catholic 
 Mystic like Coventry Patmore; was included by Canon 
 Beeching in his Lyra Sacra among its older high com- 
 peers ; and gave new heart to quite another manner of 
 man, Edward Burne- Jones." 
 
 It would be difficult to find another poem in the lan- 
 guage that gives such food for thought, so satisfying, so 
 new, that can be read and reread, and always with a 
 relish and a discovery of a new application, or the glim- 
 mer of an unseen light. In many poems, one reading 
 suffices, and the mind is sated, for the whole depth is 
 plummeted and all is revealed in a single view. It is not 
 so in this poem. There is a depth that can be sounded, 
 and deeper depths are still there. The vision takes in the 
 view, but other details arise that charm, or surprise, or 
 startle, or evoke admiration at the spiritual insight into 
 the workings of the soul. It gives great and wide 
 range of thought within a small compass, and a deep 
 
knowledge of the human soul, of the meanings of life, of 
 the soul's relation to God and of other beings not God, 
 and of the hold of God's love upon the soul in spite of its 
 fleeing from Him to the creatures of His hand. 
 
 It is happiness the human soul is ever yearning for. 
 It never ceases its quest for happiness. Night and day, 
 year after year, it is grasping after happiness. The weary 
 days of labor are borne to gain tlie wealth with which 
 it thinks it may buy happiness. The days of suffering 
 and pain are spent in watching and waiting for the agony 
 to pass, that happiness may come. It looks for it in every 
 creature, in the earth, in the sea, in the air. The soul 
 asks all these things — wherein is your liappiness — and 
 the answer of earth, air, sea is "He made us." "We are 
 for Him, for His glory." So the soul is looking for 
 happiness, and in all these things it will not find happi- 
 ness. It will find happiness only in God. And yet 
 instead of seeking it in God, it turns away from Him 
 and seeks it in the creature, something that is not God. 
 And God is ever seeking that soul which is running away 
 from Him. Wherever it runs, the sound of those feet, 
 following ever after, is heard, and a voice, stronger than 
 the beat — 
 
 But with unhurrying chase. 
 
 And imperturbed pace, 
 
 Deliberate speed, majestic instancy 
 
 They beat — and a Voice beats 
 
 More instant than the feet, 
 
 "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." 
 
 And this thought of the creature fleeing from God, and 
 ever pursued by His love, is most beautifully expressed 
 in the poem of Francis Thompson, the great Catholic poet: 
 He seems to sing in verse, the thought of St. Ignatius in 
 
 5 
 
the spiritual exercises, — the thought of St. Paul in the- 
 tender, insistent love of Christ for the soul, and the 
 yearning of Christ for the love of that soul which ever 
 runs after creatitres, till the love of Christ awakens in 
 it a love of its God, which dims and deadens all love of 
 creatures except through love for Him. This was the 
 love of St. Paul, of St. Ignatius, of St. Stanislaus, of St. 
 Francis of Assisi, of St. Clare, of St. Theresa. 
 
THE HOUND OF HEAVEN. 
 
 The name is strange. It startles one at first. It is so 
 bold, so new, so fearless. It does not attract at once, 
 rather the reverse. But when one reads the poem this 
 strangeness disappears. The meaning is understood. 
 As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its 
 running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhur- 
 rying and imperturbed pace, so does God follow the 
 fleeing soul by His Divine grace. And though in sin or 
 in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself. 
 Divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever 
 after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to 
 Him alone in that never ending pursuit 
 
FRANCIS THOMPSON. 
 
 Francis Thompson was born at Preston in 1859, the 
 son of a physician. After seven years at Ushaw, he went 
 to Queens 'College to quaHfy for his father's profession. 
 He came to London ill and in great poverty, in reality 
 starving, and was saved by the act of one whom he has 
 immortalized : 
 
 "She passed — O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing, 
 And of her own scant pittance did she give 
 
 That I might eat and live: 
 Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive." 
 
 He died in the hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, in 
 St. John's Wood, at the age of forty-eight, on November 
 13, 1907. His works are: Poems, Sister Songs, New 
 Poems, Selected Poems, The Hound of Heaven. 
 
 In prose he has written "Shelly," Health and Holiness, 
 and "The Life of St. Ignatius Loyola." The last named 
 is edited, with notes, by J. H. Pollen, S.J. 
 
 "History will certainly be busy with this remarkable 
 man's life," writes Alice Meynell, "as well as with his 
 work; and this record will serve in the future, being at 
 any rate, strictly true. As to the fate of his poetry in 
 the judgment of his country, I liave no misgivings. 
 For no reactions of taste, no vicissitude of language, no 
 change in the prevalent fashions of the art, no altering 
 sense of the music of verse, can lessen the height or 
 diminish the greatness of this poet's thought, or undo 
 his experience, or unlive the life of this elect soul, or 
 efface its passion. There is a call to our time from' the 
 noble seventeenth century ; and this purely English poet 
 cried "Adsum" to the resounding summons: 
 Come, and come strong 
 To the conspiracy of our spacious song. 
 8 
 
The Hound of Heaven 
 
 I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days ; 
 I fled Him, down the arches of the years ; 
 I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways 
 
 Of my own mind ; and in the mist of tears 
 1 hid from Him, and under running laughter. 
 Up vistaed hopes, I sped; 
 And shot, precipitated, 
 Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears. 
 
 From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. 
 But with unhurrying chase, 
 And unperturbed pace, 
 Deliberate speed, majestic instancy. 
 
 They beat — and a Voice beat 
 More instant than the Feet — 
 "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." 
 
 I pleaded, outlaw-wise, 
 By many a hearted casement, curtained red, 
 
 Trellised with interwining charities ; 
 (For, though I knew His love Who followed. 
 
 Yet was I sore adread 
 Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.) 
 But, if one little casement parted wide, 
 The gust of His approach would clash it to. 
 Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. 
 
 9, 
 
Across the margent of the world I fled, 
 
 And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, 
 Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars; 
 Efctted to dulcet jars 
 And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. 
 I said to dawn: Be sudden; to eve: Be soon — 
 With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over 
 From this tremendous Lover! 
 Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see ! 
 
 I tempted all His servitors, but to find 
 IVIy own betrayal in their constancy. 
 In faith to Him their fickleness to me, 
 
 Their traitorous tr'ueness, and their loyal deceit. 
 To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; 
 Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. 
 But whether they swept, smoothly fleet. 
 The long savannahs of the blue; 
 
 Or whether. Thunder-driven, 
 They clanged His chariot 'thwart a heaven, 
 Flashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their 
 feet :— 
 Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. 
 Still with unhurrying chase. 
 And unperturbed pace. 
 Deliberate speed, majestic instancy. 
 Came on the following Feet, 
 And a Voice above their beat — 
 "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." 
 
 I sought no more that after which I strayed 
 
 In face of man or maid ; 
 But still within the little children's eyes 
 
 Seems something, something that replies, 
 They at least are for me, surely for me! 
 
 10 
 
I turned me to them very wistfully; 
 
 But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair 
 
 With dawning answers there, 
 Their angel plucked them from me by the hair 
 
 "Come then, ye other children, Nature's — share 
 With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship; 
 Let me greet you lip to lip. 
 Let me twine with you caresses. 
 
 Wantoning 
 With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses, 
 
 Banqueting 
 With her in her wind-walled palace, 
 Underneath her azured dais, 
 Quaffing, as your taintless way is, 
 From a chalice 
 Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring." 
 
 So it was done : 
 / in their delicate fellowship was one — 
 Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. 
 
 / knew all the swift importings 
 On the wilful face of skies; 
 I knew how the clouds arise, 
 Spumed of the wild sea-snortings ; 
 All that's born or dies 
 Rose and drooped with; made them shapers 
 Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine — 
 With them joyed and was bereaven. 
 I was heavy with the even. 
 When she lit her glimmering tapers 
 Round the day's dead sanctities. 
 I laughed in the morning's eyes. 
 I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, 
 Heaven and I wept together, 
 11 
 
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; 
 Against the red throb of its sunset-heart 
 I laid my own to beat, 
 And share commingHng heat ; 
 But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart! 
 In vam my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. 
 For ah !^ we know not what each other says, 
 
 These things and I; in sound / speak— 
 Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. 
 Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; 
 
 Let her, if she would owe me. 
 Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me 
 
 The breasts o' her tenderness: 
 Never did any milk of hers once bless 
 My thirsting mouth. 
 Nigh and nigh draws the chase, 
 With unperturbed pace, 
 Deliberate speed, majestic instancy. 
 And past those noised Feet 
 
 A Voice comes yet more fleet 
 
 "Lo ! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me " 
 Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! 
 My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me. 
 And smitten me to my knee; 
 I am defenceless utterly. 
 I slept, methinks, and woke, 
 And, slowly gazing, fmd me stripped in sleep 
 In the rash lustihead of my young powers, 
 
 I shook the pillaring hours 
 And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears 
 1 stand amid the dust o' the mounded years— 
 My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap 
 My days have crackled and gone up in smoke 
 Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream 
 
 18 
 
Yea, faileth now even dream 
 The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; 
 
 Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist 
 I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, 
 Are yielding; cords of all too weak account 
 For earth, with heavy griefs so overplussed. 
 
 Ah ! is Thy love indeed 
 A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, 
 Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? 
 
 Ah! must- 
 Designer infinite ! — 
 Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn 
 
 with it? 
 My freshness spent its wavering shower i'the dust; 
 And now my heart is as a broken fount, 
 Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever 
 
 From the dank thoughts that shiver 
 Upon the sighful branches of my mind. 
 
 Such is; what is to be? 
 The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? 
 I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; 
 Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds 
 From the hid battlements of Eternity: 
 Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then 
 Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again ; 
 
 But not ere him who summoneth 
 
 I first have seen, enwound 
 With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; 
 His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. 
 Whether man's heart or life it be which yields 
 
 Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields 
 
 Be dunged with rotten death? 
 13 
 
Now of that long pursuit 
 Conies on at hand the bruit; 
 That Voice-is round me Uke a bursting sea: 
 ' "And is thy earth so marred, 
 Shattered in shard on shard? 
 Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me ! 
 Strange, piteous, futile thing! 
 Wherefore should any set thee love apart? 
 Seeing none but I make much of naught" (He said), 
 "And human love needs human meriting: 
 
 How hast thou merited— 
 Of all man's clotted clacy the dingiest clot? 
 
 Alack, thou knowest not 
 How little worthy of any love thou art! 
 Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, 
 Save Me, save only Me? 
 
 All which I took from thee I did but take, 
 
 Not for thy harms. 
 But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms. 
 
 All which thy child's mistake 
 Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: 
 
 Rise, clasp My hand, and come." 
 
 Halts by me that footfall: 
 Is my gloom, after all, 
 Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? 
 "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, 
 I am He Whom thou seekest ! 
 Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me." 
 
 U 
 
THE HOUND OF HEAVEN. 
 
 Interpretation. 
 
 The poet begins with the idea of the soul fleeing from 
 God, "I fled Him down the arches of the years," and 
 how it strives to hide from Him in sorrow and joy, "in 
 the mist of tears and under running laughter." Nor can 
 it escape either in hope or fear from those feet "that 
 follow after" "up vistaed hopes" and "adown ' Titanic 
 glooms of chasmed fears." For those feet ever follow 
 after and a voice beats "more instant than the feet" "with 
 unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, majestic in- 
 stancy." 
 
 "All things betray thee who betrayest me." 
 
 And when it came to plead for the love of other 
 hearts, "by many a hearted casement," although it knew 
 His love, yet it feared lest having him, it must have 
 naught beside. 
 
 The human heart is not generous enough to give up all, 
 and be satisfied witli the love of God. It wishes other 
 things besides God, and because God will have no other 
 love in His place, it fears the love of God which demands 
 this sacrifice, and it sacrifices God instead. But He is 
 not satisfied with this. The creature must love Him, So 
 when the "casement is parted wide" the "gust of His ap- 
 proach would clash it to." — 
 
 The soul is in fear of Him. It flees, but love pursues 
 after fear. And though it flee to the stars across the 
 world, to the moon, love is there still pursuing. At dawn 
 and at eve it strives to hide, it calls upon the sky to drop 
 its veil lest He see. 
 
 15 
 
/ 
 
 It tries to tempt God's creatures, but finds them con- 
 stant, and itself betrayed. To everything swift it turns 
 to evade the Divine pursuer, to the wind of the 
 prairie, or to- the t^iunder-driven winds that sweep the 
 heavens mid thunder and Hghtning-, but its fear cannot 
 evade the swift following- of love. Its search is vain 
 in the face of man or maid, and it turns to the children, 
 thinking "they at least are for me, surely for me," again 
 to be undeceived. They answer not, for their angel takes 
 them away. Nature's children will guard their fellow- 
 ship, playing with the tresses of Mother Earth, in her 
 palace with walls of wind and her blue dais of the 
 heavens, drinking from a chalice out of the day-spring. 
 It learned the secrets of Nature, the changes in the sky 
 and the meaning thereof, the origin of the clouds from 
 the foam of the sea, the causes of life and death, and 
 made these tell his moods of lamentation or divine 
 exaltation, companions of joy or sorrow. It was heavy 
 with the evening, and radiant with laughter in the morn- 
 ing, and glad in bright and sad in stormy weather. It 
 wept with nature and throbbed in unison with its sunset 
 heart. But not all these things could fill the craving. 
 Nature felt the tears on her own cheek, but could not un- 
 derstand, or speak. Nature was but a stepmother, and 
 could not slake that thirst, nor did she once give to drink 
 of her breasts for the quenching of that burning thirst. 
 Nowhere can it find content. 
 
 Finally, when all has failed, when the armor is broken 
 piece by piece and falls from the soul and it is smitten 
 and utterly defenceless, the soul that seemed sleeping, 
 awakes. It finds that in its sleep it has been stripped. 
 In the rash strength of its youth, it pulled down the 
 pillars of life in time. It stood amid the dust of its years 
 heaped up as a mound, all begrimed with smears. 
 
 IG 
 
Its youth lies dead under that heap, the days of life 
 seem to have caught fire as chips, and crackled and gone 
 up in smoke, and seemed to puff up and burst, as the 
 sunlight flashes on rippling water. 
 
 And now even the dream is gone from the dreamer, 
 and the lute no more gives music for the lute-player. 
 
 Even the thoughts of poesy that seemed to make the 
 earth an enchanted toy are fading away; they were not 
 strong enough cords for the earth, and are overtaxed 
 by grief. 
 
 All is so full of sadness, and sorrow, and grief, and 
 failure to the heart seeking for love. 
 
 Ah ! is this His love ? Is it an immortal weed that will 
 let no flowers spring up but its own? 
 
 Must Thou, O infinite designer, char the wood before 
 Thou wilt draw any design with it? 
 
 Ah ! must — 
 
 Designer infinite ! 
 
 Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn 
 with it? 
 
 This is what puzzles the world. 
 
 Must Thou char the wood? 
 
 Must the soul and life be burnt in bitter suffering, a 
 complete holocaust — before Thou canst limn with it? 
 
 Before God can draw, in the infinite design of His 
 Providence, and work with the soul as a fit instrument, 
 it must be charred in the furnace of suffering. 
 
 Upon the soul must be carved the image of Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified. 
 
 In the Christian life must be reproduced the crucified. 
 
 The pride of human life must be charred by humilia- 
 tion deep and bitter. 
 
 The sensuality of man must be burnt to a charred stick 
 
 17 
 
I 
 
 by physical pain, intense suffering, denial of the senses, I 
 absolute. 
 
 The uncontrolled* affections of the human heart must 
 be bridled, subdued, conquered, and before Divine Love 
 can use that heart, all merely human dross must be burnt 
 away, and the heart purified of all earthly desire. 
 
 Ah ! must — 
 
 Must Thou, Designer infinite, char the wood, before 
 Thou canst limn with it? 
 
 It is the history of the dealings of God with the human 
 soul. 
 
 All pride, sensuality, inordinate affection must be burnt 
 out of the heart before God works with it on His design. 
 And until that is done, after the soul there comes the beat 
 of insistent feet, and a voice more instant than the beat. 
 
 Deny thyself, leave all and follow Me. 
 
 And the voice will never cease till the soul gives up all 
 it loves, absolutely all, even though it persists in strug- 
 gling to hold, and yields nothing until forced by that 
 voice around it like a bursting sea, "Naught shelters thee, 
 who wilt not shelter Me." — 
 
 "The cross, therefore, is always ready, and everywhere 
 waits for thee. 
 
 Thou canst not escape it whithersoever thou runnest ; 
 for whithersoever thou goest, thou carriest thyself with 
 thee, and shalt always find thyself. 
 
 Turn thyself upwards, or turn thyself downwards ; 
 turn thyself without or turn thyself within thee, and 
 everywhere tjiou wilt find the cross. 
 
 Prepare thyself to suffer many adversities, and divers 
 evils, in this miserable life." (Imitation of Christ, 
 I. C, 12.) 
 
 My freshness has fallen down as a shower in the dust, 
 n^y heart is like a broken fountain, filled with stagnant 
 
 18 
 
tears that drop from the moist-heavy thoughts, from the 
 sad branches of my mind. 
 
 If the inside of the fruit is so bitter, how will the 
 rind taste? I dimly guess at what is seen confusedly 
 through the mists of Time. Yet at times I hear a trum- 
 pet from Eternity, I catch a glimpse of those everlasting 
 battlements, for a moment I see them through the half- 
 clearing mists that settle thick again and dim the view. 
 But not before I have seen him who calls, wrapped in 
 his purple robes of gloom and crowned with cypress. I 
 know death, and the meaning of his trumpet that calls an 
 end to all in life. 
 
 For the harvest field, whether it is of man's life or 
 man's heart, must be dunged with death before they yield 
 Him a harvest. 
 
 Life, before its harvest is given to the Divine Harvester 
 must meet with death ; so too, the harvest of the human 
 heart must meet with the death of all it loves, must die 
 to self before it gives the harvest to the harvester of love. 
 
 The noise of the long pursuit is at hand, and that 
 Voice is around me like a bursting sea. 
 
 Is that earth which thou didst so love, now so utterly 
 spoiled that it lies like a broken jar in pieces on the 
 ground? Lo! all things fly thee, for thou fliest me. 
 
 O strange, pitiful object, so helpless. Why should it 
 thus think that anything should love thee ? No one but 
 I loves such a wretched thing as thou art. 
 
 There should be some merit to deserve human love. 
 
 What hast thou done tO' merit ? Thou, the most dingy 
 clot of all mortal-clotted clay. 
 
 Alas, thou dost not know how little worthy thou art of 
 any love. Thou art so ignoble, whom wilt thou find to 
 love thee, but Me ? Whatever I took from thee, I did not 
 take to harm thee by the loss, but that thou mightst look 
 
 19 
 
for it in my arms. By a child's mistake, what thou didst 
 imagine was lost, I have kept all stored for thee at 
 home. — . «, 
 
 Rise, clasp my hand and come. That footstep is be- 
 side me. — 
 
 Is it true that what I thought was my gloom, was only 
 the shadow of His hand outstretched to caress me? 
 
 I hear him say to me now, and oh, how true it is ! 
 
 Ah! fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou 
 seekest. Thou dravest love from Thee, who dravest Me. 
 
 20 
 
SEPARATE TOPICS. 
 
 The Soul pursued by God. 
 
 The soul flees from Him — nights, days, years — in wan- 
 dering of thought, in tears and laughter, in hopes and 
 fears — 
 
 Those feet — follow — and a Voice 
 
 More instant than the feet 
 
 "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." 
 
 The love of creatures. 
 
 They elude him, evade him, are not true to him. for 
 he is not true to God. "Naught shelters thee, who wilt 
 not shelter me." 
 
 The love of children. 
 
 When their love seems to answer, their angels pluck 
 them from him by the hair. 
 The love of nature. 
 
 Nature, poor stepdame. cannot slake my drought. 
 
 "Lo! naught contents thee, who content' st not me." 
 
 Shorn of armor — defenceless — asleep — awake, my man- 
 gled youth lies dead. 
 
 My days have gone up in smoke. 
 
 Puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. 
 
 The dream fails the dreamer, the lute the lutanist. 
 
 The soul sought human love, — and though I knew His 
 love who followed, yet I was sore adread, lest having 
 Him, I must have naught beside. 
 
 The soul knows His love — and knows it is a jealous 
 love, and is afraid that if it accepts that love and answers 
 it as it should be answered, there could be no room for 
 any creature. 
 
 And flying from that love, every human love was dis- 
 
 21 
 
loyal, false—false to the love that was false to God— true 
 to God and in its trueness to God— untrue to the love 
 untrue to God. ^ 
 
 And the children just as their love answers— their 
 angel plucked them by the hair. 
 
 Come, then, ye other children— Nature's— share with 
 me your delicate fellowship. 
 
 I drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. 
 
 Knew the importings of the wilful face of skies. 
 
 How clouds arise— from the foam of the wild sea 
 snortings. 
 
 Knew all that's born or dies. 
 
 I was heavy with the even. 
 
 When she lit her glimmering tapers. 
 
 Round the day's dead sanctities. 
 
 I laughed in the morning's eyes. 
 
 I triumphed and I saddened in all weather. 
 
 But Ah ! We know not what each other says. 
 
 In sound I speak— they speak in silences. 
 
 Whether man's heart or life it be which yields Thee 
 harvest— must thy "harvest fields be dunged with rotten 
 death. 
 
 Now after that long pursuit comes a noise. 
 That Voice is round me like the bursting sea. 
 
 "And is thy earth so marred 
 Shattered in shard on shard." 
 
 Lo all things iiy Thee, for thou iiiest me. 
 Wherefore should any set thee love apart? 
 Seeing none, but I make much of naught. 
 "How little worthy of any love thou art." 
 
 "Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, save Me 
 
 save only Me?" 
 
 22 
 
All which I took for thee I did but take not for thy 
 harms. 
 
 But just that thou mightest seek it in my arms. 
 All that thou didst fancy lost, I have stored for thee 
 at home. 
 
 Rise, clasp my hand and come. 
 
 Halts by me, that footfall. 
 Is my gloom after all 
 
 Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly, 
 
 Ah! fondest, blindest, weakest, 
 
 I am He whom thou seekest^ 
 
 Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me." 
 
 23 
 
MYSTICAL APPLICATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE SOUL FLEES FROM GOD. 
 
 The soul flees from God by the love of creatures, by 
 sin, by self-love, by turning from God, by refusing to 
 listen to the inspirations of grace. 
 
 Turning away from God. 
 
 1. "All things betray thee, zuho betrayest Me." 
 
 Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. 
 
 2. "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." 
 
 Children and nature. 
 
 3. "Lo! naught contents thee, zvho content' st not Me." 
 
 Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke. 
 
 4. "Lo! all things iiy thee, for thou Uiest Me." 
 
 Strange, piteous, futile thing! 
 
 5. "IVhoni zvilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, 
 
 Save only Me?" 
 All which I took from thee I did but take, not for 
 thy harms. 
 
 6. "Rise, clasp my hand, and come." 
 
 Halts by me, tbat footfall : 
 
 7. "Ah, fondest, blindest, zvcakest, 
 "I am He Whom thou seekest!" 
 
 "Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me." 
 The soul seeks for happiness 
 In creatures. 
 In human sympathy. 
 In knowledge and study and science. 
 
 35 
 
In nature. 
 
 All is failure. 
 
 It can find -it only in God. 
 
 Without Whom all is emptiness. 
 
 The very unloveableness of all is to teach the loveable- 
 
 ness of God. 
 
 He has recompense for all. 
 
 Only He loves— He only is worthy of being loved. ^ 
 
 When the soul drives Him away it drives away happi- 
 ness. 
 
 It turns from God— true happiness— to look for happi- 
 ness in something that is not God. 
 
 It runs away from God— and God ever pursues the 
 soul— yearning to win it back to true happiness, while it 
 pursues false happiness. 
 
 This false happiness it looks for in creatures. 
 
 In human beings— in human sympathy and love. 
 
 In the love of little children. 
 
 In the love of nature. 
 
 In the love of knowledge— earth, sea and sky, the 
 stars— in the seasons— they all speak not. 
 
 20 
 
MYSTICAL APPLICATION. 
 II. 
 
 GOD PURSUES THE SOUL. 
 
 When the soul turns from God to love creatures inor- 
 dinately instead of loving God, He places disappointment 
 in the object loved, to make it turn back to God, who 
 alone can satisfy the capacity of the soul. He follows 
 and reproaches the disloyalty of the soul, and creatures 
 are disloyal to it, at the time they seem loyal, with "trait- 
 orous trueness" and "loyal deceit." 
 
 God reproaches the soul, chides it, pleads with it. 
 Sends it many inspirations, by means of a word, a ser- 
 mon, a line, a sorrow of life, a sickness, a suffering. 
 
 The soul finds all a failure — ^bitterness, with despond- 
 ency and occasional glimpses of Eternity, and the thought 
 of decay and death. 
 
 Then sounds a voice — like a bursting sea. The love 
 that was sought is broken in pieces like a vessel of clay. 
 All things fail to answer the yearning for love of the 
 human soul — which only God can fill. 
 
 Why should I find anything in thee to love, and yet I, 
 only I, love thee — worthy of little love. 
 
 Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, save Me, 
 save only Me? 
 
 "That which I took — thou'lt find it in my arms, 
 It's stored for thee at home, not lost. 
 Rise, clasp my hand and come." 
 "Halts by me that footfall 
 Is my gloom after all 
 
 Shade of His hand outstretched caressingly? 
 27 
 
Ah ! fondest, blindest, weakest, 
 
 I am He whom thou seekest, 
 
 Thou dravest Ioa^^ from thee, wTio dravest Me." 
 
 Francis Thompson wrote the Life of St. Ignatius and 
 knew his ideas. 
 
 From the Poem we may draw a parallel with the 
 Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius : 
 
 28 
 
Spiritual Exercises. 
 
 I Week. 
 
 End of man, end of creatures, 
 
 sin, hell, death. 
 
 The soul turns from God by 
 
 the wrong love of creatures. 
 
 Chooses them instead of God. 
 
 Repentance. Conversion of 
 
 Soul to God. 
 
 Poem. 
 
 I. 
 
 The soul fleeing from God to 
 
 every creature. 
 Resisting grace. 
 Returning to God. 
 Rise, clasp My hand and come. 
 
 II Week. 
 Knowledge and Love of Our 
 
 Lord. The Kingdom of 
 Christ. The Incarnation. 
 The Nativity. Hidden Life. 
 Public Life. Two standards. 
 Three classes of Men. Three 
 Degrees of Humanity. 
 
 III Week. 
 The Passion of Christ. 
 
 The Agony, the Scourging, the 
 
 The Passion of Christ. 
 Crowning with Thorns. Be- 
 fore Pilate. The Death in 
 shame on the Cross in the 
 Crucifixion. 
 
 IV Week. 
 The Resurrection. 
 Contemplation on Divine Love. 
 The creatures of God that 
 
 IL 
 
 Humility, surrender. 
 
 Naked I wait Thy love's up- 
 lifted stroke. My mangled 
 youth lies dead beneath the 
 heap. How little worthy of 
 any love thou art. Whom 
 wilt thou find to love ignoble 
 thee save Me, save only Me ? 
 IH. 
 
 The Mystery of Suffering. 
 
 Is Thy love indeed a weed, an 
 amaranthine weed? 
 
 Ah ! designer infinite. 
 
 Oh ! must Thou char the wood 
 before Thou burn with it. 
 Desolation of soul, sorrow, 
 humiliation. Self Sacrifice 
 with Christ Crucified. 
 IV. 
 
 Rise, clasp My hand and come. 
 
 All which thy child's mistake 
 
 29 
 
were means before, are now fancies as lost, I have stored 
 
 as gifts from God to the 
 soul. The creatures oi. God 
 which He has made, lives in, 
 operates in, for man, are 
 broken reflections of the Di- 
 vine beauty. 
 
 for thee at home. 
 Is my gloom after all shade of 
 His hcind outstretched ca- 
 ressingly? Thou dravest Love 
 from thee, when thou dravest 
 Me. 
 
 I Week. 
 
 In the First Week of the 
 Spiritual Exercises of St. Ig- 
 natius the soul meditates oij 
 Man and the end for which he 
 and other creatures were made, 
 God. He can find happiness in 
 God alone. He turns from 
 God to creatures, and loves 
 them for themselves, instead of 
 as means to help him to God. 
 This is sin. Sin turns man 
 from God, and leads him 
 to love creatures instead of 
 God. He meditates on the 
 evil of sin which separates 
 the soul from God and casts 
 it into hell. Knowing the 
 evil and malice of sin, the soul 
 turns back to God. God in His 
 mercy pardons the repentant 
 sinner and receives him back 
 to His friendship and His love. 
 II Week. 
 
 In the Spiritual Exercises 
 the soul listens to the Voice of 
 the King in the Kingdom of 
 Christ, who calls His noble 
 followers about Him — asking 
 them to make themselves re- 
 markable in the service of their 
 King. None but a cowardly 
 
 I. 
 In the poem by Francis 
 Thompson the soul turns away 
 frorri God, and strives to find 
 its happiness in creatures, love, 
 children, nature, knowledge, 
 poetry — it finds that all things 
 betray it who betrays God, — 
 naught contents it, who con- 
 tents not God. — It can find a 
 return of love in no creature — 
 not in man — nor in children, 
 nor in nature — until stripped of 
 all, it turns to God. — In Him 
 alone it can find what it seeks. 
 — Yet God loves it — unworthy 
 of love. — Only God loves the 
 soul — who had driven away 
 His love. 
 
 II. 
 In the Poem the thought re- 
 sponding to the Second Week 
 of the Exercises is the virtue of 
 humility, and the surrender of 
 self as the result of failure to 
 find love in creatures to satisfy 
 the yearnings of a soul meant 
 for God. The soul is sought 
 
 30 
 
knight would refuse such a 
 call. 
 
 None but a cowardly soul 
 would refuse to follow his 
 kingly leader Christ. 
 
 He must follow him, and 
 prove his love by imitating 
 Christ 
 
 In the humility of the Incar- 
 nation, 
 
 In the poverty of the Nativ- 
 ity at Bethlehem, 
 
 In the obscurity of the Hid- 
 den Life at Nazareth, 
 
 In the toil of the Public Life 
 in Judea. 
 
 If we wish to be like Christ 
 we must learn from Him and 
 H'is example the virtues of hu- 
 mility, poverty of spirit, the 
 retirement of the Hidden Life 
 and the incessant toil of the 
 Public Life. We must do good 
 not only for ourselves, but for 
 others and for the glory of 
 God. 
 
 HI Week. 
 
 The Third Week is given to 
 the Meditations on the Passion, 
 sufiferings and death of Christ. 
 After the Supper at Bethany 
 and the institution of the Eu- 
 charist, the follower of Christ 
 fed by the bread of Angels, 
 must go with his King in the 
 way of suffering. He will share 
 in the anguish of His Divine 
 Heart — in the Agony in the 
 Garden, he will feel the bitter 
 pangs of His Sacred Body — in 
 the scourging by the soldiers ; 
 
 for by God, kept from finding 
 rest in creatures by their in- 
 capacity to respond to the 
 yearning of the soul whose 
 happiness can be filled by God 
 alone. 
 
 So it must not seek that 
 which gratifies pride, and gives 
 glory to self instead of to God, 
 by fame and reputation, nor 
 rest, nor leisure in the mere 
 enjoyment of the things of the 
 earth, but make all things a 
 means of bringing the soul 
 closer to its Lord and Master. 
 So there must be humility and 
 surrender of self to God. "I wait 
 Thy love's uplifted stroke." 
 
 in. 
 
 Ah ! Designer Infinite, must 
 thou char the wood before thou 
 canst limn with it? 
 
 For the soul to be made an 
 instrument of the Infinite De- 
 signer it must be tried in the 
 fire of suffering until it is 
 charred, and its self-love and 
 imperfections removed by pain. 
 Why should it be so? The In- 
 finite Designer has so ordained. 
 He has given the example of 
 suffering. "He was wounded 
 for our iniquities, and "by His 
 
 31 
 
he will know the pangs of His 
 Divine mind in . the cruel 
 crowning of thorns, an^J will 
 taste the fdll bitterness of the 
 holocaust of suffering on the 
 road to Calvary and in the 
 three hours on the cross, and 
 the death of the Crucified. 
 
 The soul penetrates the depths 
 of Divine suffering and learns 
 that to be like the Lord it, too, 
 must share the bitterness of 
 the sufferings of the Master. 
 
 bruises we are healed." But 
 we must apply His sufferings 
 to our own souls. He merited, 
 but we must individually apply 
 His merit. It would be easier 
 for Him to bear all, and for us 
 to bear none, but He has borne 
 more, we must bear, at least, 
 some suffering. He gave the 
 greatest proof of love. He laid 
 down His life for His friend. 
 He was not obliged to do so, 
 His • love constrained Him. 
 Shall we be so unselfish as not 
 to wish to suffer something for 
 Him who suffered so much for 
 us. He gave up all for us. 
 Love dictates that we should 
 give up all for Him, even were 
 it not necessary. The proof of 
 our love will be our likeness to 
 our Crucified Lord. 
 
 Ah ! Designer Infinite, must 
 Thou char the wood ere Thou 
 canst hmn with it? 
 
 IV Week. 
 The spirit of the Fourth 
 Week of the Spiritual Exer- 
 cises is joy with our Risen 
 Lord. Gladness and happiness 
 at His Resurrection are to be 
 the keynote of all our thoughts. 
 We are rejoicing because He 
 our Master and King who suf- 
 fered pain and died, now suf- 
 fers no more, but has risen to 
 life by His own power to die 
 no more. He will receive in 
 His Sacred Humanity the re- 
 ward ef all His sufferings and 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Rise, clasp my hand, and 
 come." The despondency and 
 gloom brought on by the fail- 
 ure of creatures to respond to 
 the seeking for happiness, by 
 the failure of everything in life 
 to bring content and happiness, 
 now gives way to the consoing 
 thought : 
 
 "I, your God, am near. You 
 thought all things were lost, but 
 I have kept them stored up for 
 you at home." The gloom that 
 seemed to darken each joy and 
 
 I 
 
 3^ 
 
merits. We rejoice, also, be- 
 cause by His resurrection we 
 are assured of our resurrection 
 from the dead, and freedom 
 from sin, pain and sorrow for- 
 evermore. The creatures which 
 God gave as means are now 
 gifts of H'is goodness to us, re- 
 flections of His Divine Beauty. 
 Where we made sacrifices for 
 His love, He has given us a 
 hundredfold in return and life 
 eternal. 
 
 to take away all happiness in 
 life, was it after all the shade 
 of His hand caressing me? Is 
 it not now all brightened by the 
 joy and glory of the love that 
 has come? The love that I 
 drave away, when I drave my 
 Lord away, I drave Love from 
 me, when I drave Him. Ah ! 
 Love Divine. Stay with me 
 forevermore to be my joy. 
 Now that I know Thee, Divine 
 Love, shall I ever drive this 
 Love from me? May it not 
 be said of me "Thou dravest 
 Love from thee when thou 
 dravest Me." 
 
 33 
 
TOPICS FOR STUDY. 
 
 In this poem we may consider separately 
 The Thought. 
 The mystical thought. 
 The diction. 
 The imagery. 
 
 The wonderfully expressive words. 
 The vistas of thought opened up. 
 The soundness of the views of life. 
 The solidity of the doctrine. 
 The depths of divine love sounded. 
 The compassion of divine mercy portrayed. 
 The contrast of finite and infinite flashed forth. 
 The gentleness of Divine Providence in life's sorrows. 
 The recompense to the soul that turneth 'back to God. 
 The insight into the Spiritual Life. 
 The knowledge of the human heart. 
 The emptiness of all save God. 
 The subterfuges of the heart in evading God's love. 
 The futility of the flight of the soul from God, 
 
 34 
 
SELECTED WORDS— THOUGHTS— IDEAS. 
 
 Down the arches of the years. 
 
 I hid from Him in the mist of tears and under running 
 
 laughter, 
 Vistaed hopes. 
 
 Shot adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears. 
 Imperturbed pace, majestic instancy, deliberate speed. 
 Hearted casement. 
 Trellised with intertwining charities. 
 
 The margent of the world. 
 Gold gateways of the stars. 
 Fretted to dulcet jars. 
 And silvern chatter. 
 The pale ports of the moon. 
 
 Young skyey blossoms. 
 Tremendous lover. 
 Traitorous trueness. 
 Loyal deceit. 
 
 Whistling mane of every wind. 
 Long savannahs of the blue. 
 Thunder driven 
 
 Clanged His chariot 'thwart a heaven. 
 Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their 
 feet. 
 
 Plucked them from me by the hair. 
 Delicate fellowship. 
 Wind-walled palace. 
 
 35 
 
Azured dais. 
 Taintless way is. 
 Lucent weeping. « 
 
 Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. 
 
 Swift importings in the wilful face of skies. 
 
 Knew how the clouds arise, spumed of the wild sea 
 
 snortings, 
 Shapers of mine own words. 
 With them joyed and was ibereaven. 
 
 The day's dead sanctities, ' 
 
 I laughed in the morning's eyes. 
 
 Heaven and I wept together. 
 
 Its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine. 
 
 Red throb of its sunset heart. 
 
 My tears were hot on Heaven's grey cheek. 
 
 Their sound is but their stir. 
 
 They speak by silences. 
 
 Blue bosom veil of sky, 
 
 I shook the pillaring hours. 
 
 Pulled my life upon me. 
 
 My days have crackled and gone up in smoke. 
 
 Puflfed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. 
 
 Now fails the dream the dreamer, 
 And the lute the lutanist. 
 Blossomy twist, 
 
 I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist. 
 With heavy griefs so overplussed. 
 An amaranthine weed. 
 Designer infinite. 
 
 36 
 
Must thou char the wood to limn with it? 
 
 My freshness spent its wavering shower in the dust, 
 
 where tear-drippings stagnate. 
 Dank thoughts that shiver upon the sighful branches 
 
 of the mind. 
 Those shaken mists a space unsettle. 
 Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again. 
 With glooming robes. 
 
 Must thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death? 
 That voice is round me like a bursting sea. 
 Shattered in shard on shard. 
 Seeing none but I make much of naught. 
 Of all man's clotted clay, the dingiest clot. 
 Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, save Me, save 
 only Me? 
 
 I did but take, not for thy harms. 
 
 Is my gloom after all, shade of His hand outstretched 
 
 caressingly? 
 Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me. 
 
 'A7 
 
EXPRESSIVE WORDS. 
 
 Amaranth — Purple flower. Immortal weed. 
 
 Amaranthine — Immortal, unfading. 
 
 Bruit — noise. 
 
 Casement — window. 
 
 Clotted clay — clay in clots with moisture. 
 
 Dank — moist, heavy. 
 
 Dulcet jars — Sweet discords. 
 
 Fret — High notes held down on stringed instruments, 
 
 guitar, etc. 
 Fret — Means to tease, also to strike metal into shapes 
 
 and bars. 
 Fretted to dulcet jars. 
 Instancy — urgent pressure. 
 Limn — ^paint, draw. 
 Margent — ^border. 
 Owe — own. 
 Pulp — inside. 
 Rind — shell. 
 
 Savannahs — meadows, low, level, treeless plains. 
 Shard — piece of broken pottery. 
 Sun-starts — water flashing in the sunlight. 
 Wantoning — playing. 
 Wash — rise against, like the tide waters. 
 Wist — to know, wit. 
 
 38 
 
In his article on Francis Thompson, Albert Cock 
 says : 
 
 "Who, knowing the 'Hound of Heaven,' will assert 
 that the Catholic Church no longer voices the spiritual 
 yearnings of the age? . . . Francis Thompson is, 
 in some respects, the greatest achievement of Catholic- 
 ism in the nineteenth century. His poetry is resident in 
 man. It is the repetition of the centuries." 
 
 And he continues : 
 
 "No wonder this moved the literary world to enthusi- 
 asm. It has been said that people will be learning it by 
 heart two centuries hence. In truth its qualities hardly 
 need analyzing. Many are the odes in our language which 
 drag out a weary length and lack an inevitable finish, but 
 not of this can it be said: 
 
 Time is. Our tedious song should here have ending. 
 
 For immediacy of appeal and perfect conformity of 
 soul with Force, it has no superior; in its astounding 
 speed of phrase it reaches a new goal in our literature; 
 its subtle and intricate rhymes are the secret rivets which 
 bind together a poem unique in the singleness and great- 
 ness of its theme ; as a religious poem it stands for all the 
 world and for all time, and, by a right royal of its own 
 claims peerage with the Psalmist for range, with St. Paul 
 for virility of argument and with St. Augustine for great- 
 ness of thought and diction." 
 
 39 
 
I 8 1912 
 
THE MSANY FRIKTING CO., NEW YORK.