The Hound of Heaven

A poem has haunted me for years. Why do we flee? What are we afraid of?

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.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd 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 intertwining charities;

(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,

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.

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.

I said to Dawn : Be sudden -- to Eve : Be soon ;

With thy young skiey 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

My own betrayal in their constancy,

In faith to Him their fickleness to me,

Their traitorous trueness, 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,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet :--

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd 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 !

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 daïs,

Quaffing, as your taintless way is,

From a chalice

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."

So it was done :

I in their delicate fellowship was one --

Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings

On the wilful face of skies ;

I knew how the clouds arise

Spumèd 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,

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 commingling heat ;

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

For ah ! we know not what each other says,

These things and I ; in sound I 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 unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ;

And past those noisèd 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, find 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,

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.

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 ?

Now of that long pursuit

Comes on at hand the bruit ;

That Voice is round me like 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 makes much of naught" (He said),

"And human love needs human meriting :

How hast thou merited --

Of all man's clotted clay 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."

The Hound of Heaven
-- Francis Thompson

East of Eden

Adam and Eve had it all. God created them in His own Image, and He gave them dominion over all the living things of the earth. He created a garden in which they could dwell. What more could Adam and Eve possibly have asked for?

Yet the Eden God created was not without temptation. In the midst of the Lord’s wonderful bounty, the fruit of every tree was theirs for the taking but one. Why did they find the fruit of that one tree so irresistible? There was no evil in the world that God created until that first sin. Only then did Adam and Eve know evil, and only then, too late, did they appreciate the goodness of God. The tree truly did impart to them the knowledge for which it was named.

How, we ask now, could Adam and Eve have been so stupid? What a pair of idiots. It’s easy to blame them for blowing it for the rest of us.

But did they? We are all born in original sin, and even though we could learn from their mistake, we continue to perpetuate their sin every day. Every day we reach for more than God wishes for us. No matter what we have, it’s never enough. As if life wasn’t sweet enough, we overindulge in sex or drugs or alcohol. Even if we’re wealthy, we need even more money or a larger car or boat or house or more power and influence. The list is limited only by the things human beings desire. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence…no matter which side we’re on. We are never satisfied. That is our sin, our curse.

When Siddhartha discovered enlightenment sitting beneath that Banyan tree, he realized that the cause of all pain was desire. He realized that we could not know nirvana until we overcame desire. The first step for St. John of the Cross[1] in seeking Divine Union was the mortification of desire. Jesus taught that we should not worry about what we are to wear or to eat, for our Heavenly Father will provide for us no less than the birds of the air or the wildflowers.[2] He taught that His yoke is easy and His burden light, but only by losing our life will we find it.[3] In the Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi[4], he said that it is only by dying that we will come know eternal life. Neither Jesus nor St. Francis were speaking of literal death but of death to ourselves, death to what we desire.

Of course we cannot completely escape desire. We desire to breathe, to eat, to live and work and procreate. Not all desire is bad. We simply have to learn to distinguish between our own willful desire and that which God desires for us. We must die to ourselves and live for His Will. I won’t pretend that it is always easy, but often it is just as clear as it was for Adam and Eve. In that case God told them what His Will was. Quite often God’s Will is just as clear for us, but we choose to ignore it. We grasp for what we want simply because we can and for no other reason. And in so doing we assure we will never see Eden. We cannot blame Adam and Eve. We are Adam and Eve.

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[1] The Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul

[2] Matthew 6:25-34

[3] Matthew 10:39

[4] The Prayer of St. Francis