Home ⇒ 📌Dylan Thomas ⇒ On No Work Of Words
On No Work Of Words
On no work of words now for three lean months in the
bloody
Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:
To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given
Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,
The lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft.
To lift to leave from treasures of man is pleasing death
That will rake at last all currencies of the marked breath
And count the taken, forsaken mysteries in a bad dark.
To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice.
Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seas
If I take to burn or return this world which is each man’s
work.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Spirit whose Work is Done SPIRIT whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours! Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets; Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing;) Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! Electric spirit! That with muttering voice, through the war now closed, like a tireless […]...
- Last Words To A Dumb Friend Pet was never mourned as you, Purrer of the spotless hue, Plumy tail, and wistful gaze While you humoured our queer ways, Or outshrilled your morning call Up the stairs and through the hall Foot suspended in its fall While, expectant, you would stand Arched, to meet the stroking hand; Till your way you chose […]...
- The Way Things Work is by admitting Or opening away. This is the simplest form Of current: Blue Moving through blue; Blue through purple; The objects of desire Opening upon themselves Without us; the objects of faith. The way things work Is by solution, Resistance lessened or Increased and taken Advantage of. The way things work Is that we […]...
- Work When twenty-one I loved to dream, And was to loafing well inclined; Somehow I couldn’t get up steam To welcome work of any kind. While students burned the midnight lamp, With dour ambition as their goad, I longed to be a gayful tramp And greet adventure on the road. But now that sixty years have […]...
- Work chapter VII Then a ploughman said, “Speak to us of Work.” And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission […]...
- Work Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom, In roaring market-place or tranquil room; Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, “This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; “Of all who live, I […]...
- No Beer, No Work The shades of night was fallin’ slow As through New York a guy did go And nail on ev’ry barroom door A card that this here motter bore: “No beer, no work.” His brow was sad, his mouth was dry; It was the first day of July, And where, all parched and scorched it hung, […]...
- Work And Joy Each day I live I thank the Lord I do the work I love; And in it find a rich reward, All price and praise above. For few may do the work they love, The fond unique employ, That fits them as a hand a glove, And gives them joy. Oh gentlefolk, do you and […]...
- Work Without Hope All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair- The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing- And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the […]...
- Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
- It is easy to work when the soul is at play It is easy to work when the soul is at play But when the soul is in pain The hearing him put his playthings up Makes work difficult then It is simple, to ache in the Bone, or the Rind But Gimlets among the nerve Mangle daintier terribler Like a Panter in the Glove...
- The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride Let your work be, bride. Listen, the Guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking The chain which fastens the door? See that your anklets make no loud Noise, and that your step is not over- Hurried at meeting him. Let your work be, bride, the guest Had come in the evening. No, […]...
- Your Dad Did What? Where they have been, if they have been away, Or what they’ve done at home, if they have not – You make them write about the holiday. One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what? That’s not a sentence. Never mind the bell. We stay behind until the work is done. You count […]...
- What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
- There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
- In soothing, sweetened words No, she said, I never knew it was your first. It doesn’t Matter anyway. I always had an inkling that we’d find A way. And then we did. I’m glad about it just for that. Whether it was good or bad, or would have happened Had we made a pact or that it should have […]...
- Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered […]...
- 100. Inscribed on a Work of Hannah More's THOU flatt’ring mark of friendship kind, Still may thy pages call to mind The dear, the beauteous donor; Tho’ sweetly female ev’ry part, Yet such a head, and more the heart Does both the sexes honour: She show’d her taste refin’d and just, When she selected thee; Yet deviating, own I must, For sae approving […]...
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate all this work of Tim Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime; But trust that those we call the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent […]...
- Work for Immortality Some Work for Immortality The Chiefer part, for Time He Compensates immediately The former Checks on Fame Slow Gold but Everlasting The Bullion of Today Contrasted with the Currency Of Immortality A Beggar Here and There Is gifted to discern Beyond the Broker’s insight One’s Money One’s the Mine –...
- The Real Work It may be that when we no longer know what to do We have come our real work, And that when we no longer know which way to go We have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings....
- Madam, Withouten Many Words Madam, withouten many words Once I am sure ye will or no… And if ye will, then leave your bourds And use your wit and show it so, And with a beck ye shall me call; And if of one that burneth alway Ye have any pity at all, Answer him fair with & {.} […]...
- Last Words Dead! all’s done with! R. Browning. These blossoms that I bring, This song that here I sing, These tears that now I shed, I give unto the dead. There is no more to be done, Nothing beneath the sun, All the long ages through, Nothing by me for you. The tale is told to the […]...
- The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle.” “Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train.” “Let us cross the river and rest in the shade.” The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face All loth to turn away. And […]...
- Work I caught rumours of some internal hearing Then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes, Hands scrunched up like a child’s, rice paper skin. That work mates complained was a big surprise As you were office sunshine, shafted no-one, And turned your quick mind to the broadest cause. But there you were, a whisper finished…gone, […]...
- Work And Contemplation The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, provident control, The lines too subtly twisted to unroll Out to a perfect thread. I […]...
- Making It Work 3-foot blue cannisters of nitro Along a conveyor belt, slow fish Speaking the language of silence. On the roof, I in my respirator Patching the asbestos gas lines As big around as the thick waist Of an oak tree. “These here are The veins of the place, stuff Inside’s the blood.” We work in rain, […]...
- Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting Time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there, Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’ersnowed […]...
- The Mysteries Remain The mysteries remain, I keep the same Cycle of seed-time And of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass, I multiply, Renew and bless Bacchus in the vine; I hold the law, I keep the mysteries true, The first of these To name the living, dead; I am the wine and bread. I keep the […]...
- The Words Of Error Three errors there are, that forever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast. The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to […]...
- Words Be careful of words, Even the miraculous ones. For the miraculous we do our best, Sometimes they swarm like insects And leave not a sting but a kiss. They can be as good as fingers. They can be as trusty as the rock You stick your bottom on. But they can be both daisies and […]...
- Astrophel and Stella VII: WhenNature Made her Chief Work When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes, In colour black why wrapt she beams so bright? Would she in beamy black, like painter wise, Frame daintiest lustre, mix’d of shades and light? Or did she else that sober hue devise, In object best to knit and strength our sight; Lest, if no veil these […]...
- To Whom Words Are Mightier 1/ To whom words are mightier than swords Be warned, for woes may thee betide After our pride, land, offsprings and lives What more of us can be deprived? Virtuousness and compliance Are being ridiculed by this persecution Avarice rules the world, conscience Eclipsed by Darwinian aggression Peace is a piece of cake offered at […]...
- Sonnet V: Those Hours, That With Gentle Work Did Frame Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter, and confounds him there; Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’er-snowed […]...
- More About People When people aren’t asking questions They’re making suggestions And when they’re not doing one of those They’re either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes And then as if that weren’t enough to annoy you They employ you. Anybody at leisure Incurs everybody’s displeasure. It seems to be very irking To people at […]...
- Carol of Words 1 EARTH, round, rolling, compact-suns, moons, animals-all these are words to be said; Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances-beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, Behold! these are vast words to be said. Were you thinking that those were the words-those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words-the substantial words are in the […]...
- Last Words If the shoe fell from the other foot Who would hear? If the door Opened onto a pure darkness And it was no dream? If your life Ended the way a book ends With half a blank page and the survivors Gone off to Africa or madness? If my life ended in late spring Of […]...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
- Eternities I cannot count the pebbles in the brook. Well hath He spoken: “Swear not by thy head. Thou knowest not the hairs,” though He, we read, Writes that wild number in His own strange book. I cannot count the sands or search the seas, Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod. Grant my immortal […]...
- Night Words after Juan Ramon A child wakens in a cold apartment. The windows are frosted. Outside he hears Words rising from the streets, words he cannot Understand, and then the semis gear down For the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps Again and dreams of another city On a high hill above a wide river Bathed […]...