Collected Poems 1945-1990

by R. S. Thomas

  Beauty under some spell of the beast.

  Her pale face was the lantern

  By which they read in life’s dark book

  The shrill sentence: God is love.

  The Patriot

  He had that rare gift that what he said,

  Even the simplest statement, could inflame

  The mind and heart of the hearer. Those, who saw

  For the first time that small figure

  With the Welsh words leaving his lips

  As quietly as doves on an errand

  Of peace-making, could not imagine

  The fierceness of their huge entry

  At the ear’s porch.

  And when he wrote,

  Drawing the ink from his own veins’

  Blood and iron, the sentences

  Opened again the concealed wounds

  Of history in the comfortable flesh.

  Looking at Sheep

  Yes, I know. They are like primroses;

  Their ears are the colour of the stems

  Of primroses; and their eyes –

  Two halves of a nut.

  But images

  Like this are for sheer fancy

  To play with. Seeing how Wales fares

  Now, I will attend rather

  To things as they are: to green grass

  That is not ours; to visitors

  Buying us up. Thousands of mouths

  Are emptying their waste speech

  About us, and an Elsan culture

  Threatens us.

  What would they say

  Who bled here, warriors

  Of a free people? Savagely

  On castles they were the sole cause

  Of the sun still goes down red.

  Rhodri

  Rhodri Theophilus Owen,

  Nothing Welsh but the name;

  He moves in a landscape of dust

  That is sourer than the smell

  Of breweries. What are the moors

  To him? Shadows of boredom

  In the mind’s corners. He has six shirts

  For the week-end and a pocketful

  Of notes. Don’t mention roots

  To Rhodri; his address

  Is greater than the population

  Of Dolfor, many times

  Greater, and in that house

  There are three Owens, none with a taste

  For the homeland with its pints

  Of rain water.

  It is dry

  Here, with the hard, dry

  Urban heat, that is sickly

  With girls. But Rhodri is cool;

  From the shadow of his tree

  Of manhood he watches them

  Pass, or selects one

  To make real the power of the pounds,

  That in Wales would have gone rather

  To patch up the family stocking,

  Emblem of a nation’s despair.

  Because

  I praise you because

  I envy your ability to

  See these things: the blind hands

  Of the aged combing sunlight

  For pity; the starved fox and

  The obese pet; the way the world

  Digests itself and the thin flame

  Scours. The youth enters

  The brothel, and the girl enters

  The nunnery, and a bell tolls.

  Viruses invade the blood.

  On the smudged empires the dust

  Lies and in the libraries

  Of the poets. The flowers wither

  On love’s grave. This is what

  Life is, and on it your eye

  Sets tearless, and the dark

  Is dear to you as the light.

  Swifts

  The swifts winnow the air.

  It is pleasant at the end of the day

  To watch them. I have shut the mind

  On fools. The ’phone’s frenzy

  Is over. There is only the swifts’

  Restlessness in the sky

  And their shrill squealing.

  Sometimes they glide,

  Or rip the silk of the wind

  In passing. Unseen ribbons

  Are trailing upon the air.

  There is no solving the problem

  They pose, that had millions of years

  Behind it, when the first thinker

  Looked at them.

  Sometimes they meet

  In the high air; what is engendered

  At contact? I am learning to bring

  Only my wonder to the contemplation

  Of the geometry of their dark wings.

  Rose Cottage

  Rose Cottage, because it had

  Roses. If all things were as

  Simple! There was the place

  With some score or so of

  Houses, all of them red

  Brick, with their names clear

  To read; and this one, its gate

  Mossed over, its roof rusty

  With lichen. You chose it out

  For its roses, and were not wrong.

  It was registered in the heart

  Of a nation, and so, sure

  Of its being. All summer

  It generated the warmth

  Of its blooms, red lamps

  To guide you. And if you came

  Too late in the bleak cold

  Of winter, there were the faces

  At the window, English faces

  With red cheeks, countering the thorns.

  Hafod Lom

  Hafod Lom, the poor holding:

  I have become used to its

  Beauty, the ornamentation

  Of its bare walls with grey

  And gold lichen; to its chimney

  Tasselled with grasses. Outside

  In the ruined orchard the leaves

  Are richer than fruit; music

  From a solitary robin plays

  Like a small fountain. It is hard

  To recall here the drabness

  Of past lives, who wore their days

  Raggedly, seeking meaning

  In a lean rib. Imagine a child’s

  Upbringing, who took for truth

  That rough acreage the rain

  Fenced; who sowed his dreams

  Hopelessly in the wind blowing

  Off bare plates. Yet often from such

  Those men came, who, through windows

  In the thick mist peering down

  To the low country, saw learning

  Ready to reap. Their long gnawing

  At life’s crust gave them teeth

  And a strong jaw and perseverance

  For the mastication of the fact.

  This To Do

  I have this that I must do

  One day: overdraw on my balance

  Of air, and breaking the surface

  Of water go down into the green

  Darkness to search for the door

  To myself in dumbness and blindness

  And uproar of scared blood

  At the eardrums. There are no signposts

  There but bones of the dead

  Conger, no light but the pale

  Phosphorous, where the slow corpses

  Swag. I must go down with the poor

  Purse of my body and buy courage,

  Paying for it with the coins of my breath.

  Within Sound of the Sea

  I have a desire to walk on the shore,

  To visit the caged beast whose murmurings

  Kept me awake. What does it mean

  That I have the power to do this

  All day long, if I wish to?

  I know what thoughts will arise,

  What questions. They have done so before,

  Unanswered. It is in the freedom

  To go or not to I exist;

  To balance all the exhilaration

  Of brisk moments upon the sand

  With the knowledgeable hours that my books

  Give me. Between
their pages

  The beast sleeps and never looks out

  Through the print’s bars. Have I been wise

  In the past, letting my nostrils

  Plan my day? That salt scrubbing

  Left me unclean. Am I wise now,

  With all this pain in the air,

  To keep my room, reading perhaps

  Of that Being whose will is our peace?

  Pietà

  Always the same hills

  Crowd the horizon,

  Remote witnesses

  Of the still scene.

  And in the foreground

  The tall Cross,

  Sombre, untenanted,

  Aches for the Body

  That is back in the cradle

  Of a maid’s arms.

  Amen

  And God said: How do you know?

  And I went out into the fields

  At morning and it was true.

  Nothing denied it, neither the bowed man

  On his knees, nor the animals,

  Nor the birds notched on the sky’s

  Surface. His heart was broken

  Far back, and the beasts yawned

  Their boredom. Under the song

  Of the larks, I heard the wheels turn

  Rustily. But the scene held;

  The cold landscape returned my stare;

  There was no answer. Accept; accept.

  And under the green capitals,

  The molecules and the blood’s virus.

  Gifts

  From my father my strong heart,

  My weak stomach.

  From my mother the fear.

  From my sad country the shame.

  To my wife all I have

  Saving only the love

  That is not mine to give.

  To my one son the hunger.

  Kierkegaard

  And beyond the window Denmark

  Waited, but refused to adopt

  This family that wore itself out

  On its conscience, up and down

  In the one room.

  Meanwhile the acres

  Of the imagination grew

  Unhindered, though always they paused

  At that labourer, the indictment

  Of whose gesture was a warped

  Crucifix upon a hill

  In Jutland. The stern father

  Looked at it and a hard tear

  Formed, that the child’s frightened

  Sympathy could not convert

  To a plaything.

  He lived on,

  Søren, with the deed’s terrible lightning

  About him, as though a bone

  Had broken in the adored body

  Of his God. The streets emptied

  Of their people but for a girl

  Already beginning to feel

  The iron in her answering his magnet’s

  Pull. Her hair was to be

  The moonlight towards which he leaned

  From darkness. The husband stared

  Through life’s bars, venturing a hand

  To pluck her from the shrill fire

  Of his genius. The press sharpened

  Its rapier; wounded, he crawled

  To the monastery of his chaste thought

  To offer up his crumpled amen.

  For Instance

  She gave me good food;

  I accepted;

  Sewed my clothes, buttons;

  I was smart.

  She warmed my bed;

  Out of it my son stepped.

  She was adjudged

  Beautiful. I had grown

  Used to it. She is dead

  Now. Is it true

  I loved her? That is how

  I saw things. But not she.

  For the Record

  What was your war record, Prytherch?

  I know: up and down the same field,

  Following a horse; no oil for tractors;

  Sniped at by rain, but never starving.

  Did you listen to the reports

  Of how heroes are fashioned and how killed?

  Did you wait up late for the news?

  Your world was the same world as before

  Wars were contested, noisier only

  Because of the echoes in the sky.

  The blast worried your hair on its way to the hill;

  The distances were a wound

  Opened each night. Yet in your acres,

  With no medals to be won,

  You were on the old side of life,

  Helping it in through the dark door

  Of earth and beast, quietly repairing

  The rents of history with your hands.

  A Welshman at St James’ Park

  I am invited to enter these gardens

  As one of the public, and to conduct myself

  In accordance with the regulations;

  To keep off the grass and sample flowers

  Without touching them; to admire birds

  That have been seduced from wildness by

  Bread they are pelted with.

  I am not one

  Of the public; I have come a long way

  To realise it. Under the sun’s

  Feathers are the sinews of stone,

  The curved claws.

  I think of a Welsh hill

  That is without fencing, and the men,

  Bosworth blind, who left the heather

  And the high pastures of the heart. I fumble

  In the pocket’s emptiness; my ticket

  Was in two pieces. I kept half.

  The Moor

  It was like a church to me.

  I entered it on soft foot,

  Breath held like a cap in the hand.

  It was quiet.

  What God was there made himself felt,

  Not listened to, in clean colours

  That brought a moistening of the eye,

  In movement of the wind over grass.

  There were no prayers said. But stillness

  Of the heart’s passions – that was praise

  Enough; and the mind’s cession

  Of its kingdom. I walked on,

  Simple and poor, while the air crumbled

  And broke on me generously as bread.

  There

  They are those that life happens to.

  They didn’t ask to be born

  In those bleak farmsteads, but neither

  Did they ask not. Life took the seed

  And broadcast it upon the poor,

  Rush-stricken soil, an experiment

  In patience.

  What is a man’s

  Price? For promises of a break

  In the clouds; for harvests that are not all

  Wasted; for one animal born

  Healthy, where seven have died,

  He will kneel down and give thanks

  In a chapel whose stones are wrenched

  From the moorland.

  I have watched them bent

  For hours over their trade,

  Speechless, and have held my tongue

  From its question. It was not my part

  To show them, like a meddler from the town,

  Their picture, nor the audiences

  That look at them in pity or pride.

  The Belfry

  I have seen it standing up grey,

  Gaunt, as though no sunlight

  Could ever thaw out the music

  Of its great bell; terrible

  In its own way, for religion

  Is like that. There are times

  When a black frost is upon

  One’s whole being, and the heart

  In its bone belfry hangs and is dumb.

  But who is to know? Always,

  Even in winter in the cold

  Of a stone church, on his knees

  Someone is praying, whose prayers fall

  Steadily through the hard spell

  Of weather that is between God

  And himself.
Perhaps they are warm rain

  That brings the sun and afterwards flowers

  On the raw graves and throbbing of bells.

  Aside

  Take heart, Prytherch.

  Over you the planets stand,

  And have seen more ills than yours.

  This canker was in the bone

  Before man bent to his image

  In the pool’s glass. Violence has been

  And will be again. Between better

  And worse is no bad place

  For a labourer, whose lot is to seem

  Stationary in traffic so fast.

  Turn aside, I said; do not turn back.

  There is no forward and no back

  In the fields, only the year’s two

  Solstices, and patience between.

  The Visit

  She was small;

  Composed in her way

  Like music. She sat

  In the chair I had not

  Offered, smiling at my left

  Shoulder. I waited on

  For the sentences her smile

  Sugared.

  That the tongue

  Is a whip needed no

  Proving. And yet her eye

  Fondled me. It was clear

  What anger brought her

  To my door would not unleash

  The coils. Instead she began

  Rehearsing for her

  Departure. As though ashamed

  Of a long stay, she rose,

  Touched the tips of my cold

  Hand with hers and turned

  To the closed door. I remember

  Not opening it.

  Exchange

  She goes out.

  I stay in.

  Now we have been

  So long together

  There’s no need

  To share silence;

  The old bed

  Remains made

  For two; spirits

  Mate apart

  From the sad flesh,

  Growing thinner

  On time’s diet

  Of be and gall.

  Gospel Truth

  Service

  We stand looking at

  Each other. I take the word ‘prayer’

  And present it to them. I wait idly,

  Wondering what their lips will

  Make of it. But they hand back

  Such presents. I am left alone

  With no echoes to the amen