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R. S. Thomas

R. S. Thomas

I Look Out Over the Timeless Sea

I look out over the timeless sea
over the head of one, calendar
to time’s passing, who is now open
at the last month, her hair wintry.
 
Am I catalyst of her mettle that,
at my approach, her grimace of pain
turns to a smile? What it is saying is:
“Over love’s depths only the surface is wrinkled.”

#WelshWriters

Other works by R. S. Thomas...
The Hill Farmer Speaks

I am the farmer, stripped of love And thought and grace by the land’… But what I am saying over the fie… Desolate acres, rough with dew, Is, Listen, listen, I am a man li…
The White Tiger

It was beautiful as God must be beautiful: glacial eyes that had looked on violence and come to terms with it; a body too huge
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 4
To a Young Poet

For the first twenty years you are… Bodily that is: as a poet, of cour… You are not born yet. It’s the ne… You cut your teeth on to emerge sm… For your brash courtship of the mu…
The Way of It

With her fingers she turns paint into flowers, with her body flowers into a remembrance of herself. She is at work always, mending the garment
Praise

I praise you because you are artist and scientist in one. When I am somewhat fearful of your power, your ability to work miracles
On the Farm

There was Dai Puw. He was no goo… They put him in the fields to dock… And took the knife from him, when… At late evening with a grin Like the slash of a knife on his f…
No

And one said, This man can sing; Let’s listen to him. But the othe… Dirt on his mind, said, No, let’s Queer him. And the first, being w… Consented. So the Thing came
 1
Epitaph

The poem in the rock and The poem in the mind Are not one. It was in dying I tried to make them so.
Chapel Deacon

Who put that crease in your soul, Davies, ready this fine morning For the staid chapel, where the B… Sobers the sunlight? Who taught y… And scheme at once, your eyes turn…
Reflections

The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address… Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them.
 6
 17
Threshold

I emerge from the mind’s cave into the worse darkness outside, where things pass and the Lord is in none of them. I have heard the still, small voic…
The Fair

The idiot goes round and around With his brother in a bumping car At the fair. The famous idiot Smile hangs over the car’s edge, Illuminating nothing. This is man…
Here

I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the b… I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see
The Cat and the Sea

It is a matter of a black cat On a bare cliff top in March Whose eyes anticipate The gorse petals; The formal equation of
The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the… of great price, the one field that…
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