Francis Thompson (December 18, 1859 - November 13, 1907) was an English poet.

Francis Thompson was born in Preston, Lancashire, England. His father, a doctor, became a convert to Roman Catholicism, following his brother Edward Healy Thompson, a friend of Cardinal Manning .

He educated at Ushaw College, near Durham; and then studied medecine at Owens College in Manchester, but took no real interest. He wanted to write; but after moving to London he was reduced to selling matches and newspapers for a living.

During this time he became addicted to opium, which he initially took as a remedy for ill health. Through sending poetry to the magazine Merrie England, he was sought out by Wilfrid and Alice Meynell and rescued from the verge of starvation and self-destruction. These friends, recognizing the value of his work, gave him a home and procured the publication of his first volume of Poems (1893). The volume attracted the attention of sympathetic critics, in the St James's Gazette and other quarters, and Coventry Patmore wrote a eulogistic notice in the Fortnightly Review of January 1894.

Subsequently he lived an invalid existence, in Wales and at Storrington . He died of tuberculosis, in London.

His most famous poem, "The Hound of Heaven" describes the pursuit of the human soul by God. He also wrote Sister Songs (1895), New Poems (1897), and a posthumously published essay: Shelley (1909). He had done a little prose writing, and in 1905 a treatise On Health and Holiness was published, dealing with the ascetic life.

External links

• Project Gutenberg e-texts of Francis Thompson's works