So much has been necessary as an introduction, but our subject is
neither the man Francis Thompson nor his poetry in general, but the one
poem which is at once the most characteristic expression of his
personality and of his poetic genius. _The Hound of Heaven_ has for its
idea the chase of man by the celestial huntsman. God is out after the
soul, pursuing it up and down the universe. God,--but God incarnate in
Jesus Christ, whose love and death are here the embodiment and
revelation of the whole ideal world. The hunted one flees, as men so
constantly flee from the Highest, and seeks refuge in every possible
form of earthly experience--at least in every clean and noble form, for
there is nothing suggestive of low covert or the mire. It is simply the
second-best as a refuge from the best that is depicted here--the earth
at its pagan finest, in whose charm or homeliness the soul would fain
hide itself from the spiritual pursuit. And the Great Huntsman is
remorseless in his determination to win the soul for the very best of
all. The soul longs for beauty, for interest, for comfort; and in the
beautiful, various, comfortable life of the earth she finds them.
Pages:
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349