FRANCIS THOMPSON.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 86, 4 January 1908, Page 13

FRANCIS THOMPSON.

In two or three of the London papers that arrived by the mail'oil Thursday of this week were brief paragraphs chronicling the death of the'poet Francis Thompson at the age of >17.' Thompson did somo very remarkable work indee'dj and his three volumes received from' the 'critics, praise, of an astonishing and unusually enthusiastic tone. Of one of his first poems, "The Hound of Heaven,": Mr. Patihore wrote that it "has so great and pa'ssionatcd and such a. raetre'crcatirig motive. that we 'aro carried ;over all obstructions of the rhythmical current, and are compelled to pronounce it, at the ond, one of the verj' fow : 'great' odes of which the language can. boast. ' Mr. Traill'was as enthusiastic. a 4" Mr; Patmoro, and placed him in the front rank! "The Hound of Heaven" was 'described by Biirrie-Jones as the poem that had touched him' most, since :,Rossetti ! s Blessed- Damosol." .Wo shall print portion of; "'Tho Hound of Heaven" and k>mo selections, from otjier verses by Thompson licxt week. In thoj'. meantime, it is curious to recall to a publio'that lias'forgott(fii /Thompson ,or. ; to introduce to a public ' tha.t Jins ,'ijot ,of him, -soni?' of the' early criticisms' of vliis :.first''.volume' of "Poems." The "St. James's Gazette" called him "si hOTV''poet, and this time* a major And riot a minor one." The- "Guardian"'-found in, hiiu. "harmonies, almost , Miltonic." Coventry Patmoro declared > that his "profound thought and far-fctched _ splondour of imagery" would place him "in tho prominent ranks of fame. Tho "Daily, Chronicle" welcomed "the most fascinating poems which have appeared sinco ' and the "Speaker condeded him-'"a sublimity unsurpassed by any Victorian poet." And these opinions and judgments, even ■ more ecstatically eulogistic, aro to be found'in tho critical Press of tho day.