Poeticous Logo
en
English Español Français Italiano
R. S. Thomas

R. S. Thomas

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. Take my hand
A moment in the dance,
Ignoring its sly pressure,
The dry rut of age,
And lead me under the boughs
Of innocence. Let me smell
My youth again in your hair.

#Dance #WelshWriters

1
2
Liked or faved by...
Y. J. Hall Mira Pokorný
Other works by R. S. Thomas...
Perspectives

Beasts rearing from green slime— an illiterate country, unable to r… its own name. Stones moved into po… on the hills’ sides; snakes laid t… in their cold shadow. The earth su…
He and She

When he came in, she was there. When she looked at him, he smiled. There were lights in time’s wave breaking on an eternal shore.
 2
 4
Wooded Path in Autumn, by H. A. Brendekilde
A Day in Autumn

It will not always be like this, The air windless, a few last Leaves adding their decoration To the trees’ shoulders, braiding… Of the boughs with gold; a bird pr…
 1
Evans

Evans? Yes, many a time I came down his bare flight Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen With its wood fire, where crickets… Accompaniment to the black kettle’…
The Ancients of the World

The salmon lying in the depths of… Secretly as a thought in a dark mi… Is not so old as the owl of Cwm C… Who tells her sorrow nightly on th… The ousel singing in the woods of…
The Return

Coming home was to that: The white house in the cool grass Membraned with shadow, the bright… Of stream that was its looking—gla… And smoke growing above the roof
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.
Good

The old man comes out on the hill and looks down to recall earlier d… in the valley. He sees the stream… the church stand, hears the litter… children’s voices. A chill in the…
Thirteen Blackbirds Look at a Man

It is calm. It is as though we lived in a garden that had not yet arrived at the knowledge of
Walter Llywarch

I am, as you know, Walter Llywarc… Born in Wales of approved parents… Well goitred, round in the bum, Sure prey of the slow virus Bred in quarries of grey rain.
Anniversary

Nineteen years now Under the same roof Eating our bread, Using the same air: Sighing, if one sighs,
 1
The Woman

So beautiful—God himself quailed at her approach: the long body cur… like the horizon. Why had he made her so? How would it be, she said, leaning towards him, if instead of
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…
I Was Vicar of Large Things

I was vicar of large things in a small parish. Small-minded I will not say, there were depths in some of them I shrank back from, wells that the word “God”
Kneeling

Moments of great calm, Kneeling before an altar Of wood in a stone church In summer, waiting for the God To speak; the air a staircase



Top