The Hounds of Heaven

In 1893 Francis Thompson wrote a poem called “The Hounds of Heaven,” in which a man rails at God for deserting him, taking away so much that he treasured and having His hounds pursue him throughout his life. At the end God speaks and explains what really happened:

“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 it 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.”