Francis Thompson - The Hound of Heaven (1893)

8 Sourced Quotes

View all Francis Thompson Quotes
I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon.

Francis Thompson
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
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Francis Thompson
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars:
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.

Francis Thompson
Such is: what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?

Francis Thompson
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.

Francis Thompson
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbéd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

Francis Thompson
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity.

Francis Thompson
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I 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.

Francis Thompson