Home ⇒ 📌R S Thomas ⇒ A Marriage
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.
‘Come,’ said death,
Choosing her as his
partner for
The last dance, And she,
who in life
Had done everything
with a bird’s grace,
Opened her bill now
for the shedding
Of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Grey Gull ‘Twas on an iron, icy day I saw a pirate gull down-plane, And hover in a wistful way Nigh where my chickens picked their grain. An outcast gull, so grey and old, Withered of leg I watched it hop, By hunger goaded and by cold, To where each fowl full-filled its crop. They hospitably welcomed […]...
- Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although […]...
- Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although […]...
- Sonnets CXVI: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although […]...
- Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels (with apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper) I well recall (and who does not) The circus bill-board hippopotamus, Whose wide distended jaws For fear and terror were good cause. That month, that vasty carmine cave, Could munch with ease a Nubian slave; In fact, the bill-board hippopot- Amus could bolt a house and lot! Wide opened, […]...
- The Perfect Marriage I I hate this yoke; for the world’s sake here put it on: Knowing ’twill weigh as much on you till life is gone. Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine- Knowing that love unchained has been our life’s great wine: Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none; […]...
- The Country Of Marriage I. I dream of you walking at night along the streams Of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs Of birds opening around you as you walk. You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep. II. This comes after silence. Was it something I said That bound me […]...
- Gypsy Jill They’re hanging Bill at eight o’ clock, And millions will applaud. He killed, and so they have to kill, Such is the will of God. His brother Tom is on my bed To keep me comforted. I see his bleary, blotchy face, I hear his sodden snore. He plans that he can take Bill’s place; […]...
- Bill's Prayer I never thought that Bill could say A proper prayer; ‘Twas more in his hard-bitten way To cuss and swear; Yet came the night when Baby Ted Was bitter ill, I tip-toed to his tiny bed, And there was Bill. Aye, down upon his bended knees I heard him cry: “O God, don’t take my […]...
- Spring Birds’ love and birds’ song Flying here and there, Birds’ songand birds’ love And you with gold for hair! Birds’ songand birds’ love Passing with the weather, Men’s song and men’s love, To love once and forever. Men’s love and birds’ love, And women’s love and men’s! And you my wren with a crown of […]...
- Marriage This institution, Perhaps one should say enterprise Out of respect for which One says one need not change one’s mind About a thing one has believed in, Requiring public promises Of one’s intention To fulfill a private obligation: I wonder what Adam and Eve Think of it by this time, This firegilt steel Alive with […]...
- The Need of Being Versed in Country Things The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go. The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left […]...
- A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
- The Marriage Of Geraint The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur’s court, A tributary prince of Devon, one Of that great Order of the Table Round, Had married Enid, Yniol’s only child, And loved her, as he loved the light of Heaven. And as the light of Heaven varies, now At sunrise, now at sunset, now by night With […]...
- The Answer Bill has left his house of clay, Slammed the door and gone away: How he laughed but yesterday! I had two new jokes to tell, Salty, but he loved them well: Now I see his empty shell. Poker-faced he looks at me; Peeved to miss them jokes – how h Would have belly-laughed with glee! […]...
- Dunes WHAT do we see here in the sand dunes of the white Moon alone with our thoughts, Bill, Alone with our dreams, Bill, soft as the women tying Scarves around their heads dancing, Alone with a picture and a picture coming one after the Other of all the dead, The dead more than all these […]...
- To Songs At the Marriage Of The Lord Fauconberg And The Lady Mary Cromwell song Fauc1 First. [Chorus. Endymion. Luna.] Chorus. Th’ Astrologers own Eyes are set, And even Wolves the Sheep forget; Only this Shepherd, late and soon, Upon this Hill outwakes the Moon. Heark how he sings, with sad delight, Thorough the clear and silent Night. Endymion Cynthia, O Cynthia, turn thine Ear, Nor scorn Endymions plaints […]...
- My Hero Of all the boys with whom I fought In Africa and Sicily, Bill was the bravest of the lot In our dare-devil Company. That lad would rather die than yield; His gore he glorified to spill, And so in every battlefield A hero in my eyes was Bill. Then when the bloody war was done, […]...
- This Beautiful Black Marriage Photograph negative Her black arm: a diving porpoise, Sprawled across the ice-banked pillow. Head: a sheet of falling water. Her legs: icicle branches breaking into light. This woman, Photographed sleeping. The man, Making the photograph in the acid pan of his brain. Sleep stain them both, As if cloudy semen Rubbed shiningly over the surface […]...
- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell The Argument. Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air; Hungry clouds swag on the deep Once meek, and in a perilous path, The just man kept his course along The vale of death. Roses are planted where thorns grow. And on the barren heath Sing the honey bees. Then the perilous path […]...
- Corny Bill His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth, His hat pushed from his brow, His dress best fitted for the South I think I see him now; And when the city streets are still, And sleep upon me comes, I often dream that me an’ Bill Are humpin’ of our drums. I mind the time […]...
- Song From Marriage-A-La-Mode Why should a foolish marriage vow, Which long ago was made, Oblige us to each other now, When passion is decayed? We loved, and we loved, as long as we could, Till our love was loved out in us both; But our marriage is dead when the pleasure is fled: ‘Twas pleasure first made it […]...
- Marriage Bells Music and silver chimes and sunlit air, Freighted with the scent of honeyed orange-flower; Glad, friendly festal faces everywhere. She, rapt from all in this unearthly hour, With cloudlike, cast-back veil and faint-flushed cheek, In bridal beauty moves as in a trance Alone with him, and fears to breathe, to speak, Lest the rare, subtle […]...
- Why Should A Foolish Marriage Vow Why should a foolish marriage vow, Which long ago was made, Oblige us to each other now When passion is decay’d? We lov’d, and we lov’d, as long as we could, Till our love was lov’d out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: ‘Twas pleasure first made it […]...
- To One Persuading A Lady To Marriage Forbear, bold youth; all ‘s heaven here, And what you do aver To others courtship may appear, ‘Tis sacrilege to her. She is a public deity; And were ‘t not very odd She should dispose herself to be A petty household god? First make the sun in private shine And bid the world adieu, That […]...
- Call It a Good Marriage Call it a good marriage – For no one ever questioned Her warmth, his masculinity, Their interlocking views; Except one stray graphologist Who frowned in speculation At her h’s and her s’s, His p’s and w’s. Though few would still subscribe To the monogamic axiom That strife below the hip-bones Need not estrange the heart, […]...
- The Ache Of Marriage The ache of marriage: Thigh and tongue, beloved, Are heavy with it, It throbs in the teeth We look for communion And are turned away, beloved, Each and each It is leviathan and we In its belly Looking for joy, some joy Not to be known outside it Two by two in the ark of […]...
- Epithalamium: A Marriage Poem ‘Twas summer, when softly the breezes were blowing, And Hudson majestic so sweetly was flowing, The groves rang with music & accents of pleasure And nature in rapture beat time to the measure, When Helen and Jonas, so true and so loving, Along the green lawn were seen arm in arm moving, Sweet daffodils, violets […]...
- Given in Marriage unto Thee Given in Marriage unto Thee Oh thou Celestial Host Bride of the Father and the Son Bride of the Holy Ghost. Other Betrothal shall dissolve Wedlock of Will, decay Only the Keeper of this Ring Conquer Mortality...
- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (excerpt) In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. The cut worm forgives the […]...
- Our Pote A pote is sure a goofy guy; He ain’t got guts like you or I To tell the score; He ain’t goy gumption ’nuff to know The game of life’s to get the dough, Then get some more. Take Brother Bill, he used to be The big shot of the family, The first at school; […]...
- Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro’ sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. […]...
- 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...
- Buffalo Bill BOY heart of Johnny Jones-aching to-day? Aching, and Buffalo Bill in town? Buffalo Bill and ponies, cowboys, Indians? Some of us know All about it, Johnny Jones. Buffalo Bill is a slanting look of the eyes, A slanting look under a hat on a horse. He sits on a horse and a passing look is […]...
- Bill 'Awkins “‘As anybody seen Bill ‘Awkins?” “Now ‘ow in the devil would I know?” “‘E’s taken my girl out walkin’, An’ I’ve got to tell ‘im so Gawd bless ‘im! I’ve got to tell ‘im so.” “D’yer know what ‘e’s like, Bill ‘Awkins?” “Now what in the devil would I care?” “‘E’s the livin’, breathin’ image […]...
- The Reckoning It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant, With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want; To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass, Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass. It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill, […]...
- To My Wife Choice of you shuts up that peacock-fan The future was, in which temptingly spread All that elaborative nature can. Matchless potential! but unlimited Only so long as I elected nothing; Simply to choose stopped all ways up but one, And sent the tease-birds from the bushes flapping. No future now. I and you now, alone. […]...
- Uncle Bill My Uncle Bill! My Uncle Bill! How doth my heart with anguish thrill! For he, our chief, our Robin Hood, Has gone to jail for stealing wood! With tears and sobs my voice I raise To celebrate my uncle’s praise; With all my strength, with all my skill, I’ll sing the song of Uncle Bill.” […]...
- "To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage" “It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours.” Schopenhauer “The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open. Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen. My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, And hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes, […]...
- Bill and Joe COME, dear old comrade, you and I Will steal an hour from days gone by, The shining days when life was new, And all was bright with morning dew, The lusty days of long ago, When you were Bill and I was Joe. Your name may flaunt a titled trail Proud as a cockerel’s rainbow […]...