Francis Thompson
born Dec. 18, 1859, Preston, Lancashire,
Eng.
died Nov. 13, 1907, London
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.
