{"id":3879,"date":"2015-11-28T10:42:25","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T10:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/?p=3879"},"modified":"2015-11-29T19:06:56","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T19:06:56","slug":"the-hound-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2015\/11\/the-hound-of-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hound of Heaven By Francis Thompson (1859\u20131907)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hound-of-heaven-illustration\"<\/a>
\n`Ye did not choose out me, but I chose out you, and did appoint you, that ye might go away, and might bear fruit, and your fruit might remain, that whatever ye may ask of the Father in my name, He may give you.
\n<\/em>John 15:16<\/strong>
\n
\n<\/em><\/strong>‘Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. `Do not I fill both heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.”<\/em>
\nJeremiah 23:24<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where can I go from Your Spirit?<\/em>
\nOr where can I flee from Your presence?<\/span><\/em>
\nIf I ascend to heaven, You are there;<\/span><\/em>
\nIf I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.<\/span><\/em>
\nIf I take the wings of the dawn,<\/span><\/em>
\nIf I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
\n<\/span><\/em>Even there Your hand will lead me,<\/span><\/em>
\nAnd Your right hand will lay hold of me.
\n<\/span><\/em>Psalm 139:7-10<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

[ This classic poem is the biblical\u00a0rebuke to the permissive\u00a0heresy\u00a0“once saved, always saved”, and\u00a0to the humanistic corruption by Martin Luther, John Calvin and Erasmus of the\u00a0 doctrine of “free will”.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Enjoy!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 – “standerinfamilycourt”]<\/p>\n

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
\nI fled Him, down the arches of the years;
\nI fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
\nOf my own mind; and in the mist of tears
\nI hid from Him, and under running laughter.
\nUp vistaed hopes I sped;
\nAnd shot, precipitated,
\nAdown Titanic glooms of chasm\u00e8d fears,
\nFrom those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
\nBut with unhurrying chase,
\nAnd unperturb\u00e8d pace,
\nDeliberate speed, majestic instancy,
\nThey beat\u2014and a Voice beat
\nMore instant than the Feet\u2014
\n\u2018All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.\u2019<\/p>\n

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
\nBy many a hearted casement, curtained red,
\nTrellised with intertwining charities;
\n(For, though I knew His love Who follow\u00e8d,
\nYet was I sore adread
\nLest, having Him, I must have naught beside).
\nBut, if one little casement parted wide,
\nThe gust of His approach would clash it to.
\nFear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
\nAcross the margent of the world I fled,
\nAnd troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
\nSmiting for shelter on their clang\u00e8d bars;
\nFretted to dulcet jars
\nAnd silvern chatter the pale ports o\u2019 the moon.
\nI said to Dawn: Be sudden\u2014to Eve: Be soon;
\nWith thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
\nFrom this tremendous Lover\u2014
\nFloat thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
\nI tempted all His servitors, but to find
\nMy own betrayal in their constancy,
\nIn faith to Him their fickleness to me,
\nTheir traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
\nTo all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
\nClung to the whistling mane of every wind.
\nBut whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
\nThe long savannahs of the blue;
\nOr whether, Thunder-driven,
\nThey clanged his chariot \u2019thwart a heaven,
\nPlashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o\u2019 their feet:\u2014
\nFear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
\nStill with unhurrying chase,
\nAnd unperturb\u00e8d pace,
\nDeliberate speed, majestic instancy,
\nCame on the following Feet,
\nAnd a Voice above their beat\u2014
\n\u2018Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.\u2019<\/p>\n

I sought no more that after which I strayed
\nIn face of man or maid;
\nBut still within the little children\u2019s eyes
\nSeems something, something that replies,
\nThey at least are for me, surely for me!
\nI turned me to them very wistfully;
\nBut just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
\nWith dawning answers there,
\nTheir angel plucked them from me by the hair.
\n\u2018Come then, ye other children, Nature\u2019s\u2014share
\nWith me\u2019 (said I) \u2018your delicate fellowship;
\nLet me greet you lip to lip,
\nLet me twine with you caresses,
\nWantoning
\nWith our Lady-Mother\u2019s vagrant tresses,
\nBanqueting
\nWith her in her wind-walled palace,
\nUnderneath her azured da\u00efs,
\nQuaffing, as your taintless way is,
\nFrom a chalice
\nLucent-weeping out of the dayspring.\u2019
\nSo it was done:
\nI in their delicate fellowship was one\u2014
\nDrew the bolt of Nature\u2019s secrecies.
\nI knew all the swift importings
\nOn the wilful face of skies;
\nI knew how the clouds arise
\nSpum\u00e8d of the wild sea-snortings;
\nAll that\u2019s born or dies
\nRose and drooped with; made them shapers
\nOf mine own moods, or wailful or divine;
\nWith them joyed and was bereaven.
\nI was heavy with the even,
\nWhen she lit her glimmering tapers
\nRound the day\u2019s dead sanctities.
\nI laughed in the morning\u2019s eyes.
\nI triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
\nHeaven and I wept together,
\nAnd its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
\nAgainst the red throb of its sunset-heart
\nI laid my own to beat,
\nAnd share commingling heat;
\nBut not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
\nIn vain my tears were wet on Heaven\u2019s grey cheek.
\nFor ah! we know not what each other says,
\nThese things and I; in sound I speak\u2014
\nTheir sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
\nNature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
\nLet her, if she would owe me,
\nDrop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
\nThe breasts o\u2019 her tenderness:
\nNever did any milk of hers once bless
\nMy thirsting mouth.
\nNigh and nigh draws the chase,
\nWith unperturb\u00e8d pace,
\nDeliberate speed, majestic instancy;
\nAnd past those nois\u00e8d Feet
\nA voice comes yet more fleet\u2014
\n\u2018Lo! naught contents thee, who content\u2019st not Me!\u2019
\nNaked I wait Thy love\u2019s uplifted stroke!
\nMy harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
\nAnd smitten me to my knee;
\nI am defenceless utterly.
\nI slept, methinks, and woke,
\nAnd, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
\nIn the rash lustihead of my young powers,
\nI shook the pillaring hours
\nAnd pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
\nI stand amid the dust o\u2019 the mounded years\u2014
\nMy mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
\nMy days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
\nHave puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
\nYea, faileth now even dream
\nThe dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
\nEven the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
\nI swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
\nAre yielding; cords of all too weak account
\nFor earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
\nAh! is Thy love indeed
\nA weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
\nSuffering no flowers except its own to mount?
\nAh! must\u2014
\nDesigner infinite!\u2014
\nAh! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
\nMy freshness spent its wavering shower i\u2019 the dust;
\nAnd now my heart is as a broken fount,
\nWherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
\nFrom the dank thoughts that shiver
\nUpon the sighful branches of my mind.
\nSuch is; what is to be?
\nThe pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
\nI dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
\nYet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
\nFrom the hid battlements of Eternity;
\nThose shaken mists a space unsettle, then
\nRound the half-glimps\u00e8d turrets slowly wash again.
\nBut not ere him who summoneth
\nI first have seen, enwound
\nWith glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;
\nHis name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
\nWhether man\u2019s heart or life it be which yields
\nThee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
\nBe dunged with rotten death?
\nNow of that long pursuit
\nComes on at hand the bruit;
\nThat Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
\n\u2018And is thy earth so marred,
\nShattered in shard on shard?
\nLo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
\nStrange, piteous, futile thing!
\nWherefore should any set thee love apart?
\nSeeing none but I makes much of naught\u2019 (He said),
\n\u2018And human love needs human meriting:
\nHow hast thou merited\u2014
\nOf all man\u2019s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
\nAlack, thou knowest not
\nHow little worthy of any love thou art!
\nWhom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
\nSave Me, save only Me?
\nAll which I took from thee I did but take,
\nNot for thy harms,
\nBut just that thou might\u2019st seek it in My arms.
\nAll which thy child\u2019s mistake
\nFancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
\nRise, clasp My hand, and come!\u2019
\nHalts by me that footfall:
\nIs my gloom, after all,
\nShade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
\n\u2018Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
\nI am He Whom thou seekest!
\nThou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.\u2019<\/p>\n

Lord, may we rest confidently in Your promises while You, O God, faithfully pursue our prodigal.<\/em><\/p>\n

 
\n7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |\u00a0 Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!<\/strong><\/p>\n

www.standerinfamilycourt.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

`Ye did not choose out me, but I chose out you, and did appoint you, that ye might go away, and might bear fruit, and your fruit might remain, that whatever ye may ask of the Father in my name, He may give you. John 15:16 ‘Can anyone hide in secret places so that I … Continue reading The Hound of Heaven By Francis Thompson (1859\u20131907)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,24,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discipleship-religious-freedom-2","category-prayer","category-spiritual-warfare"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p57mep-10z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3918,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions\/3918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}