Francis Thompson

Upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

The angels keep their ancient places;— Turn but a stone, and start a wing! ‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing.

The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

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.

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 …

I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon.

Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars: Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.

But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbéd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat—and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

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.

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare; And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.

Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.

The innocent moon, that nothing does but shine, Moves all the labouring surges of the world.

Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star.

Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan, For we are born in other's pain, And perish in our own.

The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.

The hills look over on the South, And Southward dreams the sea; And with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she.

O GAIN that lurk’st ungainèd in all gain! O love we just fall short of in all love! O height that in all heights art still above! O beauty that dost leave all beauty pain! Thou unpossessed that mak’st possession vain,