Deliver me from the long drought
of the mind. Let leaves
from the deciduous Cross
fall on us, washing
us clean, turning our autumn
to gold by the affluence of their fountain.
R. S. Thomas
R. S. Thomas
They left no books
They left no books , Memorial to their lonely thought In grey parishes: rather they wrote On men’s hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten. God in his time Or out of time will correct this.
R. S. Thomas
I have been Merlin
I have been Merlin wandering in the woods Of a far country, where the winds waken Unnatural voices , my mind broken By a sudden acquaintance with man’s rage.
R. S. Thomas
You cannot find the
You cannot find the centre Where we dance , where we play, Where life is still asleep Under the closed flower , Under the smooth shell Of eggs in the cupped nest That mock the faded blue Of your remoter heaven .
R. S. Thomas
It is too late
It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart . I must stay here with my hurt.
R. S. Thomas
In the silence that is
In the silence
that is his chosen medium
of communication and telling
others about it
in words. Is there no way
not to be the sport
of reason?
R. S. Thomas
We live in our
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.
R. S. Thomas
I have nowhere to
I have nowhere to go. The swift satellites show The clock of my whole being is slow.
R. S. Thomas
Natural, hell! What was
Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life’s iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you’d build Your verse a ladder.
R. S. Thomas
The darkness is the deepening
The darkness
is the deepening shadow
of your presence; the silence a
process in the metabolism
of the being of love.
R. S. Thomas