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Author Topic: Re: Thomas Kinkaid? Francis Thompson and The Hound?  (Read 2092 times)

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Offline Dulcamara

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Re: Thomas Kinkaid? Francis Thompson and The Hound?
« on: September 27, 2007, 07:07:37 PM »
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  •  Since the question was posted in the introductions thread, I thought I'd reply elsewhere.

    I'm not personally familiar with Francis Thompson or his works, but I am fond of Thomas Kinkaid's. My personal fondness aside, I think Kinkaid's work does what real art ought to do... among other things, it reflects the glory of God's creation, reflects something that is real, and finally, is both beautiful and ordered, none of which qualities you'll find in "modern art".

    This is not particularly odd, however, since in addition to being obviously talented, Kinkaid is also a Christian... which means that his soul is drinking at least somewhat of the light of grace.

    Who can look at Kinkaid, being Christian or Catholic, and not be instantly reminded of the Eternal Light (God), or that peaceful paradise which will know no ruin? I'd call it real art.
    I renounce any and all of my former views against what the Church through Pope Leo XIII said, "This, then, is the teaching of the Catholic Church ...no one of the several forms of government is in itself condemned, inasmuch as none of them contains anythi


    Offline gladius_veritatis

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    Re: Thomas Kinkaid? Francis Thompson and The Hound?
    « Reply #1 on: September 28, 2007, 04:17:49 PM »
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  • All would do well to read some Thompson.  He is an excellent poet.
    "Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is all man."


    Offline Trinity

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    Re: Thomas Kinkaid? Francis Thompson and The Hound?
    « Reply #2 on: September 30, 2007, 07:55:05 AM »
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  • I put pictures of Kinkaid's pictures around me just to soak up the peace and beauty.  I also have an old, old picture of the Rosa Mystica which is so lovely it conveys more than a little of Our Lady's soul.  This is no small thing because you will not find such qualities anywhere on earth these days.  At least I've never found it.

    Thompson.  There is so much one could say about his story, which is pretty well laid out in Hound of Heaven.  But that poem is about God's love for a soul.  I think most people don't like it these days because it speaks of man's proper place next to God---"of all man's clotted clay, thou dingiest clot."  Or as Catherine of Siena put it, which was something like He is who is; I am who am not.  In the poem, Thompson has God saying, "seeing none but I makes much of naught."  Thompson knew we are nothing, but God chose to make "much" of us.  I believe I posted this poem under the Catholic faith sub forum.
    +RIP
    Please pray for the repose of her soul.

    Offline Trinity

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    Re: Thomas Kinkaid? Francis Thompson and The Hound?
    « Reply #3 on: September 30, 2007, 07:59:34 AM »
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  • Well, I can't find it, so I'll post it again.

    The Hound of Heaven
    by
    Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
    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 chasmed fears,
    From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
                      But with unhurrying chase,
                      And unperturbèd 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 followed,
                      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 clanged 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 skyey 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--
                      Still with unhurrying chase,
                      And unperturbèd 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 daïs,
                    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
                      Spumèd 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 gray 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 of her tenderness;
    Never did any milk of hers once bless
                        My thirsting mouth.
                        Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
                        With unperturbèd pace,
                      Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
                        And past those noisèd 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 defenseless 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 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 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 mist confounds;
    Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
    From the hid battlements of Eternity;
    Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
                    But not ere him who summoneth
                    I first have seen, enwound
    With blooming 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 rhe 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 the at home;
                    Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

      Halts by me that footfall;
      Is my gloom, after all,
    Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?
      "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
      I am He Whom thou seekest!
    Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

    Francis Thompson (1859-1907)


    +RIP
    Please pray for the repose of her soul.