The Hound Of Heaven Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDEFDGGHHI HGHJHHHHHGGDK KDDHHHHHHHHHLLHHGGHH HHGGHMMMGNNGGGGGO LLGGGGGPQQQGGDDQHHH HOGOGPHOGPGGHH GHHHORGGHGGROSDHHHHH HHHHHHHDOH HHGGHTQPHHPHP HHHHHHOHHOHHHHHHOGGH UVWWWHHHI fled Him down the nights and down the days | A |
I fled Him down the arches of the years | B |
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways | A |
Of my own mind and in the midst of tears | C |
I hid from him and under running laughter | D |
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated | E |
Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears | F |
From those strong feet that followed followed after | D |
But with unhurrying chase and unperturbe d pace | G |
Deliberate speed majestic instancy | G |
They beat and a Voice beat | H |
More instant than the feet | H |
All things betray thee who betrayest me | I |
- | |
I pleaded outlaw wise by many a hearted casement | H |
curtained red trellised with inter twining charities | G |
For though I knew His love who followe d | H |
Yet was I sore adread lest having Him | J |
I should have nought beside | H |
But if one little casement parted wide | H |
The gust of his approach would clash it to | H |
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue | H |
Across the margent of the world I fled | H |
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars | G |
Smiting for shelter on their clange d bars | G |
Fretted to dulcet jars and silvern chatter | D |
The pale ports of the moon | K |
- | |
I said to Dawn be sudden to Eve be soon | K |
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over | D |
From this tremendous Lover | D |
Float thy vague veil about me lest He see | H |
I tempted all His servitors but to find | H |
My own betrayal in their constancy | H |
In faith to Him their fickleness to me | H |
Their traitorous trueness and their loyal deceit | H |
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue | H |
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind | H |
But whether they swept smoothly fleet | H |
The long savannahs of the blue | H |
Or whether thunder driven | L |
They clanged His chariot thwart a heaven | L |
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their feet | H |
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue | H |
Still with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace | G |
Deliberate speed majestic instancy | G |
Came on the following feet and a Voice above their beat | H |
Nought shelters thee who wilt not shelter Me | H |
- | |
I sought no more that after which I strayed | H |
In face of Man or Maid | H |
But still within the little childrens' eyes | G |
Seems something something that replies | G |
They at least are for me surely for me | H |
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair | M |
With dawning answers there | M |
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair | M |
Come then ye other children Nature's | G |
Share with me said I your delicate fellowship | N |
Let me greet you lip to lip | N |
Let me twine with you caresses | G |
Wantoning with our Lady Mother's vagrant tresses | G |
Banqueting with her in her wind walled palace | G |
Underneath her azured dai s | G |
Quaffing as your taintless way is | G |
From a chalice lucent weeping out of the dayspring | O |
- | |
So it was done | L |
I in their delicate fellowship was one | L |
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies | G |
I knew all the swift importings on the wilful face of skies | G |
I knew how the clouds arise | G |
Spume d of the wild sea snortings | G |
All that's born or dies | G |
Rose and drooped with | P |
Made them shapers of mine own moods or wailful or Divine | Q |
With them joyed and was bereaven | Q |
I was heavy with the Even | Q |
when she lit her glimmering tapers round the day's dead sanctities | G |
I laughed in the morning's eyes | G |
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather | D |
Heaven and I wept together | D |
and its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine | Q |
Against the red throb of its sunset heart | H |
I laid my own to beat | H |
And share commingling heat | H |
- | |
But not by that by that was eased my human smart | H |
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek | O |
For ah we know what each other says | G |
these things and I In sound I speak | O |
Their sound is but their stir they speak by silences | G |
Nature poor step dame cannot slake my drouth | P |
Let her if she would owe me | H |
Drop yon blue bosomed veil of sky | O |
And show me the breasts o' her tenderness | G |
Never did any milk of hers once bless my thirsting mouth | P |
Nigh and nigh draws the chase with unperturbe d pace | G |
Deliberate speed majestic instancy | G |
And past those noise d feet a Voice comes yet more fleet | H |
Lo nought contentst thee who content'st nought Me | H |
- | |
Naked I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke My harness piece by piece | G |
thou'st hewn from me | H |
And smitten me to my knee | H |
I am defenceless utterly | H |
I slept methinks and awoke | O |
And slowly gazing find me stripped in sleep | R |
In the rash lustihead of my young powers | G |
I shook the pillaring hours | G |
and pulled my life upon me | H |
Grimed with smears | G |
I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years | G |
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap | R |
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke | O |
Have puffed and burst like sunstarts on a stream | S |
Yeah faileth now even dream the dreamer | D |
and the lute the lutanist | H |
Even the linked fantasies in whose blossomy twist | H |
I swung the Earth a trinket at my wrist | H |
Have yielded cords of all too weak account | H |
For Earth with heavy grief so overplussed | H |
Ah is thy Love indeed a weed | H |
albeit an Amaranthine weed | H |
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount | H |
Ah must Designer Infinite | H |
Ah must thou char the wood 'ere thou canst limn with it | H |
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust | H |
And now my heart is as a broken fount | H |
Wherein tear drippings stagnate spilt down ever | D |
From the dank thoughts that shiver upon the sighful branches of my | O |
mind | H |
- | |
Such is What is to be | H |
The pulp so bitter how shall taste the rind | H |
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds | G |
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds | G |
From the hid battlements of Eternity | H |
Those shaken mists a space unsettle | T |
Then round the half glimpse d turrets slowly wash again | Q |
But not 'ere Him who summoneth | P |
I first have seen enwound | H |
With glooming robes purpureal Cypress crowned | H |
His name I know and what his trumpet saith | P |
Whether Man's Heart or Life it be that yield thee harvest | H |
Must thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death | P |
- | |
Now of that long pursuit | H |
Comes at hand the bruit | H |
That Voice is round me like a bursting Sea | H |
And is thy Earth so marred | H |
Shattered in shard on shard | H |
Lo all things fly thee for thou fliest me | H |
Strange piteous futile thing | O |
Wherefore should any set thee love apart | H |
Seeing none but I makes much of Naught He said | H |
And human love needs human meriting | O |
How hast thou merited | H |
Of all Man's clotted clay the dingiest clot | H |
Alack Thou knowest not | H |
How little worthy of any love thou art | H |
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee | H |
Save me save only me | H |
All which I took from thee I did'st but take | O |
Not for thy harms | G |
But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms | G |
All which thy childs mistake fancies as lost | H |
I have stored for thee at Home | U |
Rise clasp my hand and come | V |
Halts by me that Footfall | W |
Is my gloom after all | W |
Shade of His hand outstretched caressingly | W |
Ah Fondest Blindest Weakest | H |
I am He whom thou seekest | H |
Thou dravest Love from thee who dravest Me | H |
Francis Thompson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Hound Of Heaven poem by Francis Thompson
Robert Alley: I gladly and humbly share MY HOUND OF HEAVEN story as often as I can. Thank you Jesus for saving a rotten sinner like me.
Best Poems of Francis Thompson