Always On Your Mark

Now of that long pursuit,
Comes at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
"And is thy Earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me.
Strange, piteous, futile thing;
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),
"And human love needs human meriting;
How hast thou merited --
Of all Man's clotted clay, the dingiest clot?
Alack! Thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
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,
All which thy childs mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home --
Rise, clasp My hand, and come."
- from "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson

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