Between Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday: A reflection on “The Hound of Heaven”
A string of unfortunate and seemingly negative events might be stuffings for either a hilarious comedy or an ultimate horror or tragedy. One certainly does not first associate a string of Job-like trials with the romance genre. My recent rereading of Frances Thompson’s “The Hound of Heaven,” however, challenge me to wonder if there could be something of romance in a number of seemingly tragic losses in mortal life. Could the stripping away of creation’s comforts and beauties from a soul be a loving move on the part of God, whose ways are often very different from human ways? This Sunday, placed one day after the romance of Valentine’s Day and two days before the penitence of Ash Wednesday, seems an appropriate time to consider what God’s romancing of souls might look like.
“The Hound of Heaven” is overall an odd candidate for the “romance poetry” category. The language of the poem as a whole wonderfully blends the terror on the part of the fleeing soul with the calm, but relentless, theme of God’s pursuit. The author deliberately identifies God’s terrifying pursuit as that of a “tremendous Lover,” – making the whole poem a sort of mysterious courting. But God’s courting throughout the poem is far from welcome and is always perceived as rather devastating for the fleeing soul.
The lengthy poem follows the soul as it flings itself into many mortal joys in an attempt to find meaning outside of God. No matter how the soul clings to the joys of human love or the glories of nature, created things are either snatched away in the end or quietly pointing towards God, not being sufficient in themselves. It is in the soul’s many attempts to capture mortal happiness that we see the string of losses which seems better suited to tragedy than romance. Why would a true lover, if bent on romantic pursuit and wooing, insist on removing simple, innocent joys from the beloved?
God’s pursuit in “The Hound of Heaven” would be something horrifying in the context of a human “lover,” and the poem’s romance would break down into a creepy stalker story. If it were a human whose “strong Feet followed, followed after” the fearful soul, we should probably not even try to categorize the poem as romance. But the reality of God’s love is so much more essential to human flourishing – yes, essential even to the very existence of man – than the mutual love of mortals for one another. We can only respond in gratitude that God’s loving pursuit is never abandoned. There is no selfish, stalker-like intention behind God’s “unhurrying chase” – he has nothing to gain from his pursuit, and yet he offers his beloved everything.
Ultimately, the romance behind the entire poem becomes clearer, though it remains rather baffling in its nature. Near the end of the poem, as God finally catches up with the fleeing soul, he chides the soul for fleeing so long, saying, “How little worthy of love thou art! / Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee / Save Me, save only Me?” God is the one true lover of the human soul, and the love he offers is ultimately more precious and real than any human bonds of affection.
Perhaps more shocking, we find that the romance has, in a hidden way, been reciprocated the whole time. While God’s love is obvious because of his persistent, loving pursuit, the soul, too, was longing for God’s love, though it refused to recognize God as the true object of its love. After the chase is over, the revelation in the poem’s final lines is that it was always God “Whom thou seekest” in the varied distractions through life. It turns out that the salvation of the soul and final union with God is the greatest, though often most unrecognized, romance of life.
This Lent, we might take up our penances with a mind to see it as a romantic journey with the Hound of Heaven. Those things which we will give up for forty days are merely fillers in our desire for God. We might be stripped of a thing for a while, only to make us aware of a deeper desire for God. As God explains to the soul, the joy of created things is sometimes removed “Not for thy harms, / But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.” So let us do away with some noise or faithless entertainment and find a better answer to our desires in God’s very self.
Let me encourage you, in these last few days before Lent, to read “The Hound of Heaven” and sit with the message of God’s tough love, which it presents. The poem stands far better on its own feet than in fragmented bits put to work in an article! But most importantly: enter into the romance of Lent and let your tremendous Lover lead you home into his heart.
Copyright ©️ 2026 Maggie Rosario
Edited By Janet Tamez
Photo By Lucy Rosario
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