Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Francis Thompson was born in Northwest England in 1859. The son of Catholic converts, as a boy he was initially educated for the priesthood. When he was 18, at his parents' insistence, he entered Owens College in Manchester to follow in his father's footsteps and study medicine. But before long, he left for London hoping to pursue what he believed was his true vocation of being a writer. As a result of ill health and subsequent medical treatment, like many before him, Thompson became addicted to opium. He soon fell into a life of despair and destitution, sleeping on the banks of the Thames with London's homeless and selling matches just to stay alive.

Yet it was during this time, in the midst of all his hunger, deprivation and hopelessness, that he was most able to see the kingdom of Heaven. These devastating experiences honed his poetic focus and insights. In 1888, Thompson sent a tattered and torn manuscript to the Catholic periodical Merry England. Its editors, Wilfrid and Alice Meynell, devout Christians themselves, not only recognized Thompson's poetic ability, they took him under their care and gave him a home. They also arranged for the publication of his first book in 1893, simply titled Poems, which included The Hound of Heaven. The poem was immediately recognized as a masterpiece.

Thompson spent the years from 1893-1897 nursing his frail health in a monastery in Wales. He died of tuberculosis on November 13, 1907. He was 47. After his death, Alice Meynell wrote that no change in poetic tastes in the years to come could ever "lessen the height or diminish the greatness" of Thompson's profound accomplishment. In his eulogy for Thompson, G. K. Chesterton simply concluded: "He was a great poet." Among those who would be influenced by Thompson was the young J. R. R. Tolkien, who purchased a volume of Thompson's works in 1913, and later claimed that it had played an important role in his own writing.

-bio via HoundofHeaven.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, April 19th, 2004.
0:09.7	Today's poem is by the late Victorian poet Francis Thompson, and it's called The Hound of Heaven.
0:17.4	Thompson was the son of English Catholic converts and was originally being educated for the priesthood, though he later decided to study medicine instead.
0:28.6	It was during this time away from home studying medicine that he lost touch with his religious upbringing and fell on hard
0:41.4	times, eventually becoming addicted to opium and ending up on the street, selling match sticks
0:47.0	to survive. He was eventually taken in by some well-meaning friends and helped it back on his feet.
0:55.2	But he would always look back on that time of hitting rock bottom as really the source of a
1:02.6	reconversion or spiritual awakening for him and as the source and inspiration for this poem,
1:10.4	which when published, skyrocketed him to
1:14.0	immediate poetic fame and notoriety. At the time of his death, he was eulogized by the likes of
1:21.6	G.K. Chesterton. Later, J.R.R. Tolkien also cited this particular poem as having a profound impact on him as a young Catholic and writer.
1:38.5	It's a long poem, though, so we're going to get right into it.
1:42.9	Thompson dramatizes and allegorizes here in the poem,
1:48.5	his own spiritual journey,
1:51.4	but also, perhaps more importantly,
1:54.4	the journey of the God who was pursuing him.
1:58.3	You can see the contrast between the two, dramatized also in the shape and meter of the lines in the poetry itself.
2:07.6	It often oscillates between a very measured and consistent line, usually in the refrains that are from God's perspective or even in God's voice. And then
2:21.5	to the erratic lines that vary in length and meter and stand more for the troubled state of
2:33.6	Thompson's own soul as he flees.
2:37.2	Here is the hound of heaven.
2:42.4	I fled him down the nights and down the days.
	...

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