Iago Prytherch (R S Thomas Poems)
Ah. Iago, my friend, whom the ignorant people thoughtThe last of your kind, since all the wealth you broughtFrom the ...
R. S. Thomas Poems (81 Poems)
Dic Aberdaron (R S Thomas Poems)
Telling us so muchit so much the morewithholds. Who was he?The clothes a labourer'sclothes: coarse trousers, tornjacket, a mole-skincap. But ...
The Rising of Glyndwr (R S Thomas Poems)
Thunder-browed and shaggy-throatedAll the men were there,And the women with the hairThat is the raven's and the rook's despair.Winds awoke, ...
Evans (R S Thomas Poems)
Evans? Yes, many a timeI came down his bare flightOf stairs into the gaunt kitchenWith its wood fire, where crickets ...
Good (R S Thomas Poems)
The old man comes out on the hilland looks down to recall earlier daysin the valley. He sees the stream ...
Chapel Deacon (R S Thomas Poems)
Who put that crease in your soul,Davies, ready this fine morningFor the staid chapel, where the Book's frownSobers the sunlight? ...
Album (R S Thomas Poems)
My father is dead.I who am look at himwho is not, as once hewent looking for mein the woman who ...
The View from the Window (R S Thomas Poems)
Like a painting it is set before one,But less brittle, ageless; these coloursAre renewed daily with variationsOf light and distance ...
Petition (R S Thomas Poems)
And I standing in the shadeHave seen it a thousand timesHappen: first theft, then murder;Rape; the rueful actsOf the blind ...
The Old Language (R S Thomas Poems)
England, what have you done to make the speechMy fathers used a stranger to my lips,An offence to the ear, ...
Ap Huw’s Testament (R S Thomas Poems)
There are four verses to put downFor the four people in my life,Father, mother, wifeAnd the one child. Let me ...
A Labourer (R S Thomas Poems)
Who can tell his years, for the winds have stretchedSo tight the skin on the bare racks of boneThat his ...
The Country Clergy (R S Thomas Poems)
I see them working in old rectoriesBy the sun's light, by candlelight,Venerable men, their black clothA little dusty, a little ...
The Gap In The Gedge (R S Thomas Poems)
That man, Prytherch, with the torn cap,I saw him often, framed in the gapBetween two hazels with his sharp eyes,Bright ...
Lament for Prytherch (R S Thomas Poems)
When I was young, when I was young!Were you ever young, Prytherch, a rich farmer:Cows in the byre, sheep in ...
Children’s Song (R S Thomas Poems)
We live in our own world,A world that is too smallFor you to stoop and enterEven on hands and knees,The ...
Via Negativa (R S Thomas Poems)
Why no! I never thought other thanThat God is that great absenceIn our lives, the empty silenceWithin, the place where ...
Invasion on the Farm (R S Thomas Poems)
I am Prytherch. Forgive me. I don't knowWhat you are talking about; your thoughts flowToo swiftly for me; I cannot ...
Saunders Lewis (R S Thomas Poems)
And he dared them;Dared them to grow old and bitterAs he. He kept his pen cleanBy burying it in their ...
A Marriage (R S Thomas Poems)
We metunder a showerof bird-notes.Fifty years passed,love's momentin a world inservitude to time.She was young;I kissed with my eyesclosed and ...
Hyddgen (R S Thomas Poems)
The place, Hyddgen;The time, the fifthCentury since Glyn DwrWas here with his men.He beat the English.Does it matter nowIn the ...
Song in a Year of Catastrophe (R S Thomas Poems)
And I went and put my handsinto the ground, and they took rootand grew into a season's harvest.I looked behind ...
A Welshman to any Tourist (R S Thomas Poems)
We've nothing vast to offer you, no desertsExcept the waste of thoughtForming from mind erosion;No canyons where the pterodactyl's wingFalls ...
Song for Gwydion (R S Thomas Poems)
When I was a child and the soft flesh was formingQuietly as snow on the bare bough of bone,My father ...
The Dance (R S Thomas Poems)
She is young. Have I the rightEven to name her? Child,It is not love I offerYour quick limbs, your eyes;Only ...
In a Country Church (R S Thomas Poems)
To one kneeling down no word came,Only the wind' s song, saddening the lipsOf the grave saints, rigid in glass;Or ...
H’m (R S Thomas Poems)
and one saidspeak to us of loveand the preacher openedhis mouth and the word Godfell out so they triedagain speak ...
The Hearth (R S Thomas Poems)
In front of the fireWith you, the folk songOf the wind in the chimney and the sparks'Embroidery of the soot--eternityIs ...
St Julien and the Leper (R S Thomas Poems)
Though all ran from him, he did notRun, but awaitedHim with his armsOut, his ears stoppedTo his bell, his alarmedCrying. ...
Pouf (R S Thomas Poems)
It was March.A windBlew. Sudden flowersOpened in the sea'sGarden; a white birdStooped to them. From the townAt the sea's edgeVoices,Frightening ...