Hound of Heaven

(Excerpt from Francis Thompson's poem The Hound of Heaven)

...Now of that long pursuit,

Comes 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 childs 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."