Dorothy Day, the social activist who later became...
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Dorothy Day, the social activist who later became a devout Roman Catholic and continued to reach out to the poor, describes the turning point in her life when she experienced the "fullness of time" in a dramatic way. She had gone to Provincetown on the northern edge of Cape Cod to hear Eugene O'Neill speak. Her transformation took place when O'Neill was reciting the poem "The Hound of Heaven," written some years previously by Francis Thomson.
O'Neill knew the poem by heart, all 182 lines of it. These were the words that seemed to be speaking directly to Dorothy as she heard them that night: "I fled him, down the nights and days / I fled him, down the arches of the years, / I fled him down the labyrinthine ways / Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears / I hid from him --"
Soon Dorothy found herself climbing the church steps attending mass along with the other working people she sought to help.
O'Neill knew the poem by heart, all 182 lines of it. These were the words that seemed to be speaking directly to Dorothy as she heard them that night: "I fled him, down the nights and days / I fled him, down the arches of the years, / I fled him down the labyrinthine ways / Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears / I hid from him --"
Soon Dorothy found herself climbing the church steps attending mass along with the other working people she sought to help.
