R S Thomas
On The Farm
There was Dai Puw. He was no good. They put him in the fields to dock swedes, And took the knife from him, when he came home At late evening with a grin Like
Ninetieth Birthday
You go up the long track That will take a car, but is best walked On slow foot, noting the lichen That writes history on the page Of the grey rock. Trees are about
The Woman
So beautiful God himself quailed At her approach: the long body curved Like the horizon. Why had he made Her so? How would it be, she said, Leaning towards him, if instead of Quarreling
Death Of A Poet
Laid now on his smooth bed For the last time, watching dully Through heavy eyelids the day’s colour Widow the sky, what can he say Worthy of record, the books all open, Pens ready,
Children’s Song
We live in our own world, A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees, The adult subterfuge. And though you probe and pry With analytic
A Marriage
We met under a shower Of bird-notes. Fifty years passed, Love’s moment in a world in Servitude to time. She was young; I kissed with my eyes closed and opened Them on her wrinkles.
The Village
Scarcely a street, too few houses To merit the title; just a way between The one tavern and the one shop That leads nowhere and fails at the top Of the short hill, eaten
Poetry For Supper
‘Listen, now, verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty.’ ‘Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Chapel Deacon
Who put that crease in your soul, Davies, ready this fine morning For the staid chapel, where the Book’s frown Sobers the sunlight? Who taught you to pray And scheme at once, your eyes
An Old Man
Looking upon this tree with its quaint pretension Of holding the earth, a leveret, in its claws, Or marking the texture of its living bark, A grey sea wrinkled by the winds of years,
A Welsh Testament
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls Of cloud for
Welsh Landscape
To live in Wales is to be conscious At dusk of the spilled blood That went into the making of the wild sky, Dyeing the immaculate rivers In all their courses. It is to
The Dance
She is young. Have I the right Even to name her? Child, It is not love I offer Your quick limbs, your eyes; Only the barren homage Of an old man whom time Crucifies.
Album
My father is dead. I who am look at him Who is not, as once he Went looking for me In the woman who was. There are pictures Of the two of them, no
Sorry
Dear parents, I forgive you my life, Begotten in a drab town, The intention was good; Passing the street now, I see still the remains of sunlight. It was not the bone buckled; You
A Peasant
Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed, Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills, Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud. Docking mangels, chipping the green skin From
A Blackbird Singing
It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes’ Ore were changed to a rare