"The Hound of Heaven" is a 182-line poem written by English poet Francis Thompson (1859–1907). The poem became famous and was the source of much of Thompson's posthumous reputation. It was first printed in 1890 in the periodical Merry England, later to appear in Thompson's first volume of poems in 1893. It was included in the Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917).
Contents
Form and theme
The poem is an ode, and its subject is the pursuit of the human soul by God's love—a theme also found in the devotional poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. Moody and Lovett point out that Thompson's use of free and varied line lengths and irregular rhythms reflect the panicked retreat of the soul, while the structured, often recurring refrain suggests the inexorable pursuit as it comes ever closer.
The Jesuit J.F.X. O'Conor remarks of the Christian themes of the poem that,
"The name is strange. It startles one at first. It is so bold, so new, so fearless. It does not attract, rather the reverse. But when one reads the poem this strangeness disappears. The meaning is understood. As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and unperturbed pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by His Divine grace. And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself, Divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to Him alone in that never ending pursuit."
Musical settings
William Henry Harris The Hound of Heaven (1919)
Humphrey John Stewart The Hound of Heaven (1924)
Miriam Gideon The Hound of Heaven (1945)
Maurice Jacobson The Hound of Heaven (1953)
Howard Blake Benedictus (1980)
Ronald Corp The Hound of Heaven (2009)
Influence
Actor Dean Jones used the line "Under Running Laughter" from the first stanza as the title of his memoir.
Thompson's work was praised by G. K. Chesterton, and it was also an influence on J. R. R. Tolkien, who presented a paper on Thompson in 1914.
In 1933, Halliday Sutherland used a phrase from the second line of the poem as the title of his best-selling autobiography, The Arches of the Years.
In 1935, Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian spiritual master, included "The Hound of Heaven" in one of his phonographic albums, Songs of My Heart. Today, his organization, Self-Realization Fellowship, offers this album in the form of a CD. Kamala Silva, a purported direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, received the gift of a printing of the "Hound of Heaven" from Yogananda and he also recited it for her.
A short passage from the poem appears in chapter four of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1938).
"The Hound of Heaven" inspired Norwegian composer Fartein Valen (1887–1952) to compose his Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 38 (1941). The sonata's three movements reflect different parts of Thompson's poem. The piece has been recorded by Glenn Gould.
Thompson's poem is mentioned and quoted in Robert Frost's 1947 play A Masque of Mercy.
"The Hound of Heaven" was used as an example of the hero's "refusal of the call" to adventure in Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
In 1955, a love letter from Suzanne Kempe to her philosophy lecturer, Sydney Sparkes Orr, quotes excerpts from the poem. Their affair was later brought to trial in Tasmania.
Thompson's poem is the source of the phrase, "with all deliberate speed," used by the Supreme Court in Brown II (1955), the remedy phase of the famous decision on school desegregation.