March 18, 2009

Hounded by poem, author pens book about poet Francis Thompson

By Roxanne King

With fervor and delight, Denver’s famed Msgr. Hugh L. McMenamin often recited Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven” from the high pulpit of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

It was 1937 and the cathedral rector’s zeal for Thompson and his most famous work made a strong impression on Frank Morriss, who was then a high school sophomore.

“He was this tall monsignor with the face of a Shakespearian actor,” Morriss said, recalling the priest who championed the building of the cathedral. “He would visit our classes and talk about Thompson and ‘The Hound of Heaven,’ so I became interested.”

That interest stayed with Morriss for decades. Finally, last year, the Wheat Ridge resident, author and journalist who once served as an editor of the Denver Catholic Register, published “Francis Thompson: A Reflection on the Poetic Vocation” (Borromeo Books).

The charming volume is both a defense of Thompson and of what Morriss calls “true poetry.”

“Anyone can write verse,” Morriss said. “But … the true poet looks at the universe and sees the reality within. I try to explain how that was done by Thompson.”

In addition to the study on Thompson, the book includes a biography of the poet, the complete text of “The Hound of Heaven,” and a glossary of Thompson’s imagery.

“Imagery is what a true poet deals in,” explained Morriss. “A poet has a vision of reality and has the ability to put in words what he is able to see as a poet.”

Thompson was an English poet who was born in 1859 and died at 47 of tuberculosis.  In secondary school his studies leaned toward the priesthood, but by 18 he decided he didn’t have a vocation. He then studied medicine for several years before leaving school to live in London as a writer. There, for three years, Thompson struggled with an addiction to opium and was often destitute. His talent was discovered by a couple, Wilfrid and Alice Maynell, editors of Merry England who lent vital support to Thompson and who first published, “The Hound of Heaven.” The poem describes God’s pursuit of the human soul.

“Thompson speaks for everybody,” Morriss said, “when he writes, ‘I fled Him, down the labrynthine ways of my own mind.’

“Thompson was quite prophetic in that poem,” Morriss added. “It describes this age—this whole age is in flight from God.”

The world today seeks its answers from science and technology and well-known scientists such as Stephen Hawkings dismiss the idea of a Divine Designer, Morriss said. While science and technology have benefited humans in extraordinary ways, Morriss said, they can’t gratify the soul’s longing for God and immortality.

“You can reach the moon, but that won’t satisfy you because the whole universe, if scientists are right, will be gone someday,” Morriss said. “The only thing left will be our relationship with our Creator.

“That’s what true poets write about,” he said, “even those who don’t write about religious subjects. You can’t be a true poet without addressing what Gerard Manley Hopkins called the ‘inscape’ of things.”

The Jesuit priest-poet Hopkins was a contemporary of Thompson’s, although the two weren’t aware of each other. Morriss’ book includes an insightful appendix on the two.

A Catholic, Thompson wrote that he wanted to be the poet of God.

“He realized he had a vocation and to fail in that vocation would be utter failure for him,” Morriss said. “He remained unmarried because he was convinced he couldn’t fulfill his vocation as a poet as completely as he could otherwise.

“Much of his poetry amounts to prayer,” Morriss continued. “His poetry is every bit as worshipful and about paying tribute to the Divine as is formal prayer.

“It’s not a substitute for prayer,” he cautioned, “it’s prayerful.”

In his book, Morriss draws an analogy between poets and prophets, noting that similar to prophets, poets have a vision others do not. It’s the poet’s vocation to share that vision with those who otherwise may not know it. He describes Thompson as a minstrel who sings the wonders of God’s mysteries.

“Our age needs poetry,” declared Morriss.

Poetry, like myths, he said, “reveals to us the reality that fulfills us.”

“The great myths of the Greeks and Romans were mistaken in their details, but they had the reality right,” Morriss said. “Mankind is not sufficient in himself—he can’t save himself. If God doesn’t want us, no one does.”

The message of “The Hound of Heaven,” is that God indeed wants us.

“The divine pursuit,” Morriss writes in his book, “ends in the pursued’s understanding and acceptance of the Reality at work—not one of loss, but gain; not of failure to escape, but surrender to a Love without which life loses meaning.”