Francis Thompson Quotes

Francis Thompson's verses feel lyrical and wistful, inviting anyone who loves dreamy reflections on nature and spirit.

36 quotes

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

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

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

4. Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.

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

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

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

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.'

11. 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.

12. I said to Dawn: Be sudden-to Eve: Be soon.

13. 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.

14. 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.

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

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

17. 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.

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

19. I fear to love you, Sweet, because Love's the ambassador of loss.

20. 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?

21. Babies breathe a lot more rapidly than adults do, and what's more, they're also growing quickly and so they're absorbing lots more into the body and they're more fragile in terms of development and so on.

22. And left the flushed print in a poppy there.

23. But lilies, stolen from grassy mold, No more curled state unfold, Translated to a vase of gold; In burning throne though they keep still Serenities unthawed and chill.

24. Happiness is the shadow of things past, Wich fools still take for that which is to be!

25. An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident.

26. The devil doesn't know how to sing, only how to howl.

27. Agnosticism is the everlasting perhaps.

28. Baby smiled, mother wailed, Earthward while the sweetling sailed; Mother smiled, baby wailed, When to earth came Viola.

29. In all change, well looked into, the germinal good out-veils the apparent ill.

30. 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. With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank, And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine When the eastern conduits ran with wine.

31. All things by immortal power. Near of far, to each other linked are, that thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star.

32. There is no expeditious road To pack and label men for God, And save them by the barrel-load. Some may perchance, with strange surprise, Have blundered into Paradise.

33. The desolation and terror of, for the first time, realizing that the mother can lose you, or you her, and your own abysmal loneliness and helplessness without her.

34. So for thy spirit did devise Its Maker seemly garniture, Of its own essence parcel pure.-- From grave simplicities a dress, And reticent demureness, And love encinctured with reserve; Which the woven vesture would subserve. For outward robes in their ostents Should show the soul's habiliments. Therefore I say,--Thou'rt fair even so, But better Fair I use to know.

35. Spring is come home with her world-wandering feet, And all things are made young with your desires.

36. Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word, And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.