The Hound of Heaven

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.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat -- and a voice beat

More instant than the Feet --

"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,

Trellised with intertwining charities;

(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,

Yet was I sore adread

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)

But, if one little casement parted wide,

The gust of his approach would clash it to :

Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.

Across the margent of the world I fled,

And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,

Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars ;

Fretted to dulcet jars

And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.

I said to Dawn : Be sudden -- to Eve : Be soon ;

With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over

From this tremendous Lover--

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see !

I tempted all His servitors, but to find

My own betrayal in their constancy,

In faith to Him their fickleness to me,

Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ;

Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,

The long savannahs of the blue ;

Or whether, Thunder-driven,

They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet :--

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on the following Feet,

And a Voice above their beat--

"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed,

In face of man or maid ;

But still within the little children's eyes

Seems something, something that replies,

They at least are for me, surely for me !

I turned me to them very wistfully ;

But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair

With dawning answers there,

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.

"Come then, ye other children, Nature's -- share

With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship ;

Let me greet you lip to lip,

Let me twine with you caresses,

Wantoning

With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,

Banqueting

With her in her wind-walled palace,

Underneath her azured daïs,

Quaffing, as your taintless way is,

From a chalice

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."

So it was done :

I in their delicate fellowship was one --

Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings

On the wilful face of skies ;

I knew how the clouds arise

Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings ;

All that's born or dies

Rose and drooped with ; made them shapers

Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine ;

With them joyed and was bereaven.

I was heavy with the even,

When she lit her glimmering tapers

Round the day's dead sanctities.

I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

Heaven and I wept together,

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ;

Against the red throb of its sunset-heart

I laid my own to beat,

And share commingling heat ;

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

For ah ! we know not what each other says,

These things and I ; in sound I speak--

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ;

Let her, if she would owe me,

Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me

The breasts o' her tenderness ;

Never did any milk of hers once bless

My thirsting mouth.

Nigh and nigh draws the chase,

With unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ;

And past those noisèd Feet

A Voice comes yet more fleet --

"Lo ! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke !

My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee ;

I am defenceless utterly.

I slept, methinks, and woke,

And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

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.

Yea, faileth now even dream

The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ;

Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist

I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,

Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account

For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah ! is Thy love indeed

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ?

Ah ! must --

Designer infinite !--

Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it ?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust ;

And now my heart is as a broken fount,

Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever

From the dank thoughts that shiver

Upon the sighful branches of my mind.

Such is ; what is to be ?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?

I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ;

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds

From the hid battlements of Eternity ;

Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then

Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.

But not ere him who summoneth

I first have seen, enwound

With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ;

His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.

Whether man's heart or life it be which yields

Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields

Be dunged with rotten death ?

Now of that long pursuit

Comes on 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 child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home :

Rise, clasp My hand, and come !"

Halts by me that footfall :

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ?

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He Whom thou seekest !

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest me."

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Today Was:

The Nanny Diaries

Grandparents Come to Call

Lochlan and Corwith (ages 3 and 1 respectively) have a routine. They are toddlers. Routine is their life. They get up in the morning, anywhere between 6:00am and 7:30am. They eat breakfast and begin a morning of non-stop play. At 9:15am Corwith is swept up the stairs to take his Morning Nap. He sleeps for almost two hours. During this time Lochlan and I do something that would be difficult while entertaining a one-year-old. Things like Bake Cookies, Make Play-Dough, Build Block Towars, Paint, and Make Pretzals. At 11:00 Corwith gets up, gets a bottle and a diper change. We play again until lunchtime at 11:30. After lunch there's an hour of play before naps at 1:00pm. For this nap both of them go down. Corwith gets a book and a little snuggling after which Lochlan gets a book or three and a lot of talking. They nap for three hours. Three hours during which I clean up their mess, read a book, and prep dinner. At 3:30 Corwith wakes up and has a bottle. Lochlan gets up at 4:00. Two hours of play follow. Dinner at 6:00, baths at 6:30ish on alternite days, and bed at 7:00, exactly.

This is their life, their routine. They know what to expect and how to behave.

This weekend the parents are off, conferenceing and vacationing. Oma and Opa (read: Grandma and Grandpa) are here to stay. Chaos reigns.

I arrived yesterday at 4:00 to help with dinner and bed. I find both children outside, sunscreanless, playing with Opa. Oma tells me brightly that she's so glad I'm here. As it turns out, both boys have gone without their afternoon naps today and Corwith is sick and has a temperature. What follows could only be expected from two sleep deprived  toddlers. There are temper tantrums, time-outs, hysteria, runy-noses, thrown dinner...As I try to feed Corwith his pizza and broccoli, which he repetedly shoves away, Opa informs me that he didn't get his three o'clock bottle that day, "because he hadn't napped so we figured he'd be ok."...um...riiiight. So instead of dinner Corwith has a bottle.

Then it's up to baths. Plopped in the warm water Corwith starts to shivver. He's really sick, poor kid. This is going to be a short bath. After 15 minutes I sweep him up and wrap him in a towl, deftly lifting the plug out of the tub without Lochlan notecing (tantrums follow draining of the tub). With Corwith dried and dressed, I wrestle Lochlan out of the tub. Naked, he races over to his brother and shoves him to the floor. Instant time out material. I know he's tired so I stick him in a chair, read a couple books to Corwith, tuck the yawning, screaming kid in his crib and take Lochlan to his room. By my calculations Corwith should be in hysterics for about 8 minutes before conking out for the night, despite his cold.

Not so.

As I'm reading to Lochlan (the ever popular-pop-up dinausour book) who should come in buy Opa, with Corwith in his arms, informing me that he was "fussing"... Really? So, with Lochlan tooth-brushed and read-to we trundle Corwith down the stairs. I'm done. Opa wants to wait until Oma gets home to ask about medicine for Corwith. The kid is half asleep in his arms. He tells me I can go and bids me a cheery "goodnight! See you tomorrow!". I droop out.

The next day (today) I sweep in, aura of power and determination around me. This will be a day of order and consistancy. Breakfast at 8:00, play, Oma, Opa, and Lochlad shooed out to the Monshire at 9:15, and Corwith soundly napping at 9:30. And here I am, about ready to prep "pesto pasta" for lunch and get little Corwith up in 1/2 an hour, exactly on time. Now if only this can last 'till 1:00...