Francis Thompson Quotes

• The hills look over on the South, And Southward dreams the sea; And with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she.
• The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.
• Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan, For we are born in other's pain, And perish in our own.
• Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.
• Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star.
• The innocent moon, that nothing does but shine, Moves all the labouring surges of the world.
• Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.
• Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul.
• 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.
• But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat-and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet- 'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.'
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
• The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
• The angels keep their ancient places;- Turn but a stone, and start a wing! 'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing.
• Upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
• I fear to love you, Sweet, because Love's the ambassador of loss.
• Little Jesus, wast Thou shy Once, and just so small as I? And what did it feel to be Out of Heaven and just like me?

francis thompson