Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Have you read this poem before?

The Hound of Heaven



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 chasm鐚玠 fears,



From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.



But with unhurrying chase,



And unperturb鐚玠 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 follow鐚玠,



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 clang鐚玠 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 unperturb鐚玠 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 da鑼俿,



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



Spum鐚玠 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 unperturb鐚玠 pace,



Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ;



And past those nois鐚玠 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."



Have you read this poem before?

Is it about getting our needs met and feeling comfortable with ourselves? Please let me know. And no, I have not read this poem before.



Have you read this poem before?

Toooooooo ooooooooooo oooooooooo ooooooo



Long



Have you read this poem before?

NO.



And I couldn't read it this time either. Way too long.



Sorry.



Have you read this poem before?

I have never read that poem before and I still haven't at least not the whole thing.



Have you read this poem before?

Why?



Have you read this poem before?

What a fascinating mix of words. So who wrote it? I've vaguely heard of a poem call "The Hound Of Heaven", is that what it's called?



Thanks, Im sure I'llread it again.



Have you read this poem before?

I believe there was something intense with the author. She/he must have spent a week writing down this one. At one point I thought I understood they She/he took a turn and I thought She/he was talking about something entirely different. No I never read it before, I didn't finish it, and I won't be interested in reading it again. But thanks anyway!



Have you read this poem before?

I suggest readers copy and paste for later reference, preferably on hard copy.



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