THOMPSON, FRANCIS

born Dec. 18, 1859, Preston, Lancashire, Eng. died Nov. 13, 1907, London English poet of the Aesthetic movement 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 went to London to seek a livelihood. Poverty reduced him to selling matches and newspapers, and ill health drove him to opium. He wrote his first poems after finding light work with a shoemaker, and 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, which was highly praised. From 1893 to 1897 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), were published by Meynell. Thompson died of tuberculosis.