Thus begins the flight from this "tremendous Lover." The Soul speeds on and on, knocking vainly for shelter at the door of earthly love; next seeking comradeship with the elements, in the very "heart of Nature's secrecies"—
But not by that, by that, was cased 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.
One by one fails each human hope,
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist:
there is one last, bitter cry, and then—submission! Love has conquered, and "like a bursting sea" sounds the voice of the Pursuer:
"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."
Thompson has written greater poems than "The Dread of Height"; but, with the sole exception of the "Hound," he has written nothing more characteristic. It is the cry of a soul that has stood very high upon the mountain peaks, and in the glory of fire and cloud feels eternal banishment from the little, joyful things of mortality; for
'Tis to have drunk too well
The drink that is divine
Maketh the kind earth waste,
And breath intolerable.
Moreover, human feet are weak, and the highest
