Francis Thompson

Francis Thompson (born Dec. 18, 1859, Preston, Lancashire, Eng.—died Nov. 13, 1907, London) was an English poet of the 1890s, whose most famous poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” describes the pursuit of the human soul by God.

Thompson was educated in the Roman Catholic faith at Ushaw College, a seminary in the north of England. He studied medicine at Manchester, but not conscientiously, and began to take opium; he then went to London, where from 1885 to 1888 he lived in destitution. In 1888 the publication of two of his poems in Wilfrid Meynell’s periodical, Merry England, aroused the admiration of Robert Browning. Meynell and his wife, Alice, befriended Thompson, induced him to enter a hospital, nursed him through convalescence, and in 1893 arranged publication of a collection, Poems. Thompson is chiefly associated with rhapsodic accounts of religious experience written in a diction much influenced by 17th-century Catholic verse, though he could also produce elegant, direct, and moving short poems, such as “At Lord’s,” a remarkable lyric about cricket.

From 1892 to 1896 Thompson lived near a Franciscan priory in north Wales, during which period he wrote Sister Songs (1895) and New Poems (1897). He also wrote a number of prose works, mostly published posthumously, including the essay Shelley (1909). The Works of Francis Thompson, 3 vol. (1913), was published by Meynell. Thompson died of tuberculosis.

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