The Pursuit

"Strange, piteous, futile thing

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

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 them 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."

-Francis Thompson

excerpt from the Hound of Heaven