"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..."
Only one who had felt the awful loneliness of that pursuit, the frenzied haste, the tears of disappointment, the shriveled hope, could have written such passionate poetry. One who has scaled the night to lose himself among the flowers of heaven, and who saw them wither at his touch; one who has sunk down exhausted before the Pursuer, and found that all things he had lost, God has stored for him "at home."
Thus it is, that if we study the emotions in the "Hound of Heaven," we shall find ourselves gazing at a pun; fear pitted against a tremendous love. A fear that trembles before the drowning, dissolving desire of God, and seeks for love little enough for him to toy with, and tender enough to smile with him, and pure enough to weep for him, a love that is not so vast, and illimitable, and fearfully jealous, anywhere, anywhere, where love of God is not.
And so the soul flew away, on the petulant, impetuous feet of childhood, and plunged into secret, cypress-guarded streams of joy, and shook the golden-gated stars, and beat at hearted casements, and prattled with the little children but here also God's love was.
Such fear is not despicable; nor is it worthy of our contempt. For such fear as flooded the poet's soul, we should have only pity. How often have we ourselves shunned the searching tenderness of God, and sought little joys that content not; how often have we dreaded that isolating, amaranthine love divine, because of a silly selfishness, that we might lose our toys of earth!
All these Francis Thompson knew. He knew that this intensely personal account of life, far from arousing impatience and derision, would awaken, I would not say sympathy, but pity ― an understanding pity, such as Thomas the Apostle must have felt while blessing a doubt-distracted catechumen. That is why he could caress the soft, dim strings of fellow-feeling, because he knew that the response would be a tearful throb.
The pathetic appeal before the love-tinted heart of man
"I pleaded, outlaw-wise
By many a hearted casement curtained red..."
The tearful hope among little children:
"They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully..."
The pitiful cry of sorrow:
"Ah! must ―
Designer Infinite!
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn
with it
The wistful, childlike question:
"Halts by me that foot fall:
Is my gloom, after all
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?"
But though this pity for the fleeing soul is very great still the love of God and for God is even greater, and the joy and exultation of the chase's outcome, when the pursued surrenders, and consents to be led "home" again, is almost overwhelming. This must necessarily be so, because before the face of God's love all fear, all pity, all human sympathy is as naught. So it was done: the fear, the sadness of the pursued served only to heighten the passion of the Pursuer; each plaintive wail for shelter from this "tremendous Lover" thundered back an echo of the eternal cry:
"Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me!"
The soul clangs the silver knocker of the stars ― and finds that God is there. It rides bareback on the wearied chargers of the wind ― lo! He is there. It wantons with the trees and clouds and all the untrammeled children of Nature ― and finds that among these stream the sunlight benediction of the Lord.
"Alas!" cries the distracted soul, "God's love is everywhere. Whither can I flee from one who holds His stars a handful in one hand, Who weaves His mantle of the flowered meadows, and will not let anything of His own to love me? His voice is round me like a bursting sea; He drowns me, dissolves me in His love...I die...and when I live again, it is within His love..."
Was there ever such a love as God's for the lost lamb of the flock? That is why the "Hound of Heaven" is the finest lyric in the language, and one of the greatest examples of concupiscible emotion. God's love does not consider. It does not weigh merit on spirit-scales, God does not love with a discriminating love, His yearning is to press all souls to His bosom, and His desire is an illimitable desire. His is a mad love, and unreasonable love, a glorious love!
What can the fleeing soul do, what can we do, but succumb to such insistent, such insistent love? That is why I call the "Hound of Heaven" of the purest concupiscible emotion.
And because of this is the poem universal. For the love of God and His pursuit of souls is just as immense when the human race was young as now, when it is sophisticated; just as impetuous with the chosen race at the foot of Sinai, and with the 'fou hundred's [sic] of fifty cities just as fiery within the temple of Solomon as within a New York night club. Down every century, God has pursued wayward man and won him with eternal love...
Down the vastly-looming forests, the tangled glades, the turbulent mountain torrents where Adam and Eve and their children roamed and hid and hunted...
Down the pillared dimness, richly-veiled of temples, down strange, incense haunted corridors, down richly-lighted shrines of devil-gods...
Down the Numidian-marbled banquet halls, the wine-splashed floors, the purple orgies, the myrtled bacchanalian feasts of Nero...
Down Broadway - blare of horns - blinding electrics, ermine wraps, silk hats, door checks ― "Extra! Gangsters..― languid waltzes, dizzy jazz ― youth and beauty...
Down cloistered walks of sunset, vaguely rustling with the garments of passing nuns, softly charged with the lily breath of prayer...
Down everywhere, down immemorial years, down all the alleys of the world and all the pebbled garden paths of stars... And always, it is God who wins. Always, when the soul at last sinks wearied out, stripped of all its vanities, its shattered pride, its dinted indifference, always the victor lays aside His blinding armor and draws aside the veil of eternal love; always, in accents of infinite tenderness, come those words that only God can utter:
"Rise, clasp my hand, and come."
It seems almost a presumption to attempt to criticize Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven." It has too much of the hugeness of mountains, too much of the majesty of seas for one feeble intellect to wholly grasp and appreciate. We shall have reached somewhere towards understanding such a poem, however, if we consider it in the light of first principles regarding poetic thought and imagination.
It has been said that when excellence of expression is taken for granted, the comparative elevation of subject matter is the element that secures immortality or oblivion for a piece of literature. That is, were one to suppose that Milton's emotional and imaginative execution is on the same plane in the two poems "Paradise Lost" and "Comus," greater fame and deathlessness belongs to "Paradise Lost" ― being founded as it is on one of the noblest conceptions and purposes possible to the mind of man.
"...what in me is dark,
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That, to the highth of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."
Waiving emotion and imagination for the moment, therefore, we may emphatically say that it takes a beautiful thought to create a beautiful poem. And by beautiful we do not mean what is merely pleasing to the senses, or gifted with a fanciful piquancy, or faultlessly symmetrical ― what we mean above all these things what is elevating, what is at the same time pleasing and uplifting to the purely spiritual nature of man. "Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo" ― in the purely aesthetic light, in which the very practical and Roman Horace never meant it to be taken.
What thought is there, then, that is more ennobling and heaven-aspiring than the thought of God? And further, what is more thrilling and transporting to the spirit than to follow that God's eternal thirst and untiring pursuit of souls? For such is the "Hound of Heaven."
Francis Thompson chose a thought that rises above all things, and overshadows all things, and shines far away from everything ― he chose a thought that is mountain and sky and star ― he chose a thought of God. Never in the history of man has ode or lyric poem attained such altitudes. The "Hound of Heaven" still remains the greatest song in world literature.
But for a beautiful thought to be of lasting beauty, it must find expression in imagination and emotion that is flawless, exquisitely forceful, powerfully moving. Thus also is the beauty of the fleeting rose caught by delicately-pencilled tints upon the canvas; thus is the momentary grace of a godlike gesture captured in Athenian marble; thus is the thunder of a darkening sea prisoned within a symphonic crescendo; thus is passing wonder held captive by eternal art. For art is but imitation idealized, and therefore must have a noble medium of expression to retain its nobility of concept. What is there that we can say concerning the imagination of the "Hound of Heaven"?
The first thing that strikes us is the luxuriance of imagery. We are smothered breathless in pictures. Every phrase, almost every word, presents a scene to the imagination. And these not vague, half-formed hazes, but vivid presentations, forceful, clear cut, impressive. So impressive, in fact, that there is nothing in English literature to equal the magnificence of some of them.
"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?..."
But the greatest danger to imaginative luxuriance is exaggeration, or, in the picturesquely modern term, "overdoing it." An almost irresistible tendency for poetic minds gifted with the power of summoning at one time a multitude of vivid images, is to run these impressions together, mix them and blend them, as it were, and thus lose the definiteness of their outlines.
Here our second observation comes in. Never, amidst all the richness and detail of his pictures, does Francis Thompson lose sight of his poem's main outline, or slacken control upon his fancy. One does not retain, after reading the "Hound of Heaven," a series of dim, misty, disconnected visions ― he finds out, on the contrary, that the treasuries of his mind has acquired a treasure, a flashing, clean cut jewel, many-faceted, it is true, but still one jewel, with a single brilliance, and a lonely fire, end a solitary spirit. Each image follows the other with perfect logic, at the same time keeping sharply its own individuality. Until the last triumphant cry of the Pursuer glorying in a victory which is also victory for the pursued, we have the impression of travelling to far places, and pulsing to the thrill of the holy chase; of threading the mazes of the stars, and pattering across the blue flagstones of the sky, of calling and thirsting and loving with the Pursuer, of fleeing and sorrowing and fearing with the pursued. But it is all one chase and one journey, for there is only one God and only one victory, which is God's.
With this twofold characteristic of luxuriance and unity, Francis Thompson in the "Hound of Heaven" has fashioned imagery so exquisite, so seemingly fragile, so breathlessly powerful, that one, rough touch of an alien hand, and the whole illusion, the delightful fantasy, the noble dream, is gone. That is why there can be only one "Hound of Heaven," because there had been only one Francis Thompson, who felt as he felt, and dreamed as he dreamt, and wrote as he had written. "The Hound of Heaven" is, and shall always be, Francis Thompson's.
And yet not his, for he wrote it not for personal fame and glory; he wrote it as a simple soul who had fled in sadness from the Pursuer, and found joy at last in bondage, victory in defeat; he wrote it as a tribute to the Love that sought him out in sunlight and in shadow, in seas and stars, in depths and altitudes; he wrote it in memory of the darkness and the emptiness that was his for a time, and in welcome of the Joy that is his eternally; he wrote it for a time, and in welcome of the Joy that is his eternally; he wrote it for the Arrowshaft that pierced his selfishness, the Voice that called to him, the Fire that consumed him; he wrote it for the Pursuer, and it belongs to God.
And justify the ways of God to men."
Waiving emotion and imagination for the moment, therefore, we may emphatically say that it takes a beautiful thought to create a beautiful poem. And by beautiful we do not mean what is merely pleasing to the senses, or gifted with a fanciful piquancy, or faultlessly symmetrical ― what we mean above all these things what is elevating, what is at the same time pleasing and uplifting to the purely spiritual nature of man. "Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo" ― in the purely aesthetic light, in which the very practical and Roman Horace never meant it to be taken.
What thought is there, then, that is more ennobling and heaven-aspiring than the thought of God? And further, what is more thrilling and transporting to the spirit than to follow that God's eternal thirst and untiring pursuit of souls? For such is the "Hound of Heaven."
Francis Thompson chose a thought that rises above all things, and overshadows all things, and shines far away from everything ― he chose a thought that is mountain and sky and star ― he chose a thought of God. Never in the history of man has ode or lyric poem attained such altitudes. The "Hound of Heaven" still remains the greatest song in world literature.
But for a beautiful thought to be of lasting beauty, it must find expression in imagination and emotion that is flawless, exquisitely forceful, powerfully moving. Thus also is the beauty of the fleeting rose caught by delicately-pencilled tints upon the canvas; thus is the momentary grace of a godlike gesture captured in Athenian marble; thus is the thunder of a darkening sea prisoned within a symphonic crescendo; thus is passing wonder held captive by eternal art. For art is but imitation idealized, and therefore must have a noble medium of expression to retain its nobility of concept. What is there that we can say concerning the imagination of the "Hound of Heaven"?
The first thing that strikes us is the luxuriance of imagery. We are smothered breathless in pictures. Every phrase, almost every word, presents a scene to the imagination. And these not vague, half-formed hazes, but vivid presentations, forceful, clear cut, impressive. So impressive, in fact, that there is nothing in English literature to equal the magnificence of some of them.
"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?..."
But the greatest danger to imaginative luxuriance is exaggeration, or, in the picturesquely modern term, "overdoing it." An almost irresistible tendency for poetic minds gifted with the power of summoning at one time a multitude of vivid images, is to run these impressions together, mix them and blend them, as it were, and thus lose the definiteness of their outlines.
Here our second observation comes in. Never, amidst all the richness and detail of his pictures, does Francis Thompson lose sight of his poem's main outline, or slacken control upon his fancy. One does not retain, after reading the "Hound of Heaven," a series of dim, misty, disconnected visions ― he finds out, on the contrary, that the treasuries of his mind has acquired a treasure, a flashing, clean cut jewel, many-faceted, it is true, but still one jewel, with a single brilliance, and a lonely fire, end a solitary spirit. Each image follows the other with perfect logic, at the same time keeping sharply its own individuality. Until the last triumphant cry of the Pursuer glorying in a victory which is also victory for the pursued, we have the impression of travelling to far places, and pulsing to the thrill of the holy chase; of threading the mazes of the stars, and pattering across the blue flagstones of the sky, of calling and thirsting and loving with the Pursuer, of fleeing and sorrowing and fearing with the pursued. But it is all one chase and one journey, for there is only one God and only one victory, which is God's.
With this twofold characteristic of luxuriance and unity, Francis Thompson in the "Hound of Heaven" has fashioned imagery so exquisite, so seemingly fragile, so breathlessly powerful, that one, rough touch of an alien hand, and the whole illusion, the delightful fantasy, the noble dream, is gone. That is why there can be only one "Hound of Heaven," because there had been only one Francis Thompson, who felt as he felt, and dreamed as he dreamt, and wrote as he had written. "The Hound of Heaven" is, and shall always be, Francis Thompson's.
And yet not his, for he wrote it not for personal fame and glory; he wrote it as a simple soul who had fled in sadness from the Pursuer, and found joy at last in bondage, victory in defeat; he wrote it as a tribute to the Love that sought him out in sunlight and in shadow, in seas and stars, in depths and altitudes; he wrote it in memory of the darkness and the emptiness that was his for a time, and in welcome of the Joy that is his eternally; he wrote it for a time, and in welcome of the Joy that is his eternally; he wrote it for the Arrowshaft that pierced his selfishness, the Voice that called to him, the Fire that consumed him; he wrote it for the Pursuer, and it belongs to God.
― Horacio Luis de la Costa y Villamayor, A.B. 1935
Wings, I, Ateneo de Manila
Manila, March 1932
 |
Hound of Heaven: Panel X, The Gust of His Approach by R.H. Ives Gammell
Oil on canvas. 1956. Maryhill Museum of Art, Washington.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment