PROLOGUE This day winding down now At God speeded summer's end In the torrent salmon sun, In my seashaken house On a breakneck of rocks Tangled with chirrup and fruit, Froth, flute, fin and quill At a wood's dancing hoof, By scummed, starfish sands With their fishwife cross Gulls, pipers, cockles, and sails, Out there, crow black, men Tackled with clouds, who kneel To the sunset nets, Geese nearly in heaven, boys Stabbing, and herons, and shells That speak seven seas, Eternal waters away From the cities of nine Days' night whose towers will catch In the religious wind Like stalks of tall, dry straw, At poor peace I sing To you strangers, (though song Is a burning and crested act, The fire of birds in The world's turning wood, For my sawn, splay sounds), Out of these seathumbed leaves That will fly and fall Like leaves of trees and as soon Crumble and undie Into the dogdayed night. Seaward the salmon, sucked sun slips, And the dumb swans drub blue My dabbed bay's dusk, as I hack This rumpus of shapes For you to know How I, a spinning man, Glory also this star, bird Roared, sea born, man torn, blood blest. Hark: I trumpet the place, From fish to jumping hill! Look: I build my bellowing ark To the best of my love As the flood begins, Out of the fountainhead Of fear, rage red, manalive, Molten and mountainous to stream Over the wound asleep Sheep white hollow farms To Wales in my arms. Hoo, there, in castle keep, You king singsong owls, who moonbeam The flickering runs and dive The dingle furred deer dead! Huloo, on plumbed bryns, O my ruffled ring dove In the hooting, nearly dark With Welsh and reverent rook, Coo rooing the woods' praise, Who moons her blue notes from her nest Down to the curlew herd! Ho, hullaballoing clan Agape, with woe In your beaks, on the gabbing capes! Heigh, on horseback hill, jack Whisking hare! who Hears, there, this fox light, my flood ship's Clangour as I hew and smite (A clash of anvils for my Hubbub and fiddle, this tune On a tongued puffball) But animals thick as thieves On God's rough tumbling grounds (Hail to His beasthood). Beasts who sleep good and thin, Hist, in hogsback woods! The haystacked Hollow farms in a throng Of waters cluck and cling, And barnroofs cockcrow war! O kingdom of neighbours, finned Felled and quilled, flash to my patch Work ark and the moonshine Drinking Noah of the bay, With pelt, and scale, and fleece: Only the drowned deep bells Of sheep and churches noise Poor peace as the sun sets And dark shoals every holy field. We will ride out alone, and then, Under the stars of Wales, Cry, Multitudes of arks! Across The water lidded lands, Manned with their loves they'll move, Like wooden islands, hill to hill. Huloo, my proud dove with a flute! Ahoy, old, sea-legged fox, Tom tit and Dai mouse! My ark sings in the sun At God speeded summer's end And ,the flowers now. 1 I KNOW THIS VICIOUS MINUTE'S HOUR I know this vicious minute's hour; It is a sour motion in the blood, That, like a tree, has roots in you, And buds in you. Each silver moment chimes in steps of sound, And I, caught in mid-air perhaps, Hear and am still the little bird. You have offended, periodic heart; You I shall drown unreasonably, Leave you in me to be found Darker than ever, Too full with blood to let my love flow in. Stop is unreal; I want reality to hold within my palm, Not, as a symbol, stone speaking or no, But it, reality, whose voice I know To be the circle not the stair of sound. Go is my wish; Then shall I go, But in the light of going Minutes are mine I could devote to other things. Stop has no minutes, but I go or die. 2 COOL, OH NO COOL Cool, oh no cool, Sharp, oh no sharp, The hillock of the thoughts you think With that half-moulded mind I said was yours, But cooler when I take it back, And sharper if I break asunder The icicle of each deliberate fancy. For when I bought you for a thought, (you cost no more) How could I smooth that skin Knowing a dream could darken it, And, the string pulled, some mental doll Ravage and break, How kiss, when doll could say Master, her mouth is sawdust And her tongue, look, ash, Part from her, Part from her, Sweet, automatic me knows best. But you shall not go from me, creation; Oh no, my mind is your panopticon; You shall not go unless I will it And my thoughts flow so uneasily There is no measured sea for them, No place in which, wave perched on wave, Such energy may gain The sense it is to have. You wish to stay my prisoner Closed in your cell of secret thoughts, And I, your captor, have my love to keep From which you may not fly. 3 THE AIR YOU BREATHE The air you breathe encroaches The throat is mine I know the neck Wind is my enemy your hair shant stir Under his strong impulsive kiss The rainbow's foot is not more apt To have the centaur lover So steal her not O goat-legged wind But leave but still adore For if the gods would love Theyd see with eyes like mine But should not touch like I Your sweet inducive thighs And raven hair. 4 CABARET I, poor romantic, held her heel Upon the island of my palm, And saw towards her tiny face Going her glistening calves that minute. There was a purpose in her pointed foot; Her thighs and underclothes were sweet, And drew my spiral breath To circumambulate for decency Their golden and their other colour. The band was playing on the balcony. One lady's hand was lifted, But she did not cry, `I see; I see the man is mad with love.' Her fan burst in a million lights As that her heel was lifted, Gone from my palm to leave it marked With quite a kind of heart. She is on dancing toes again, Sparkling a twelve-legged body And many arms to raise Over her heel and me. I, poor romantic, contemplate The insect on this painted tree. Which is the metal wing And which the real? 5 SOMETIMES THE SKY'S TOO BRIGHT Sometimes the sky's too bright, Or has too many clouds or birds, And far away's too sharp a sun To nourish thinking of him. Why is my hand too blunt To cut in front of me My horrid images for me, Of over-fruitful smiles, The weightless touching of the lip I wish to know I cannot lift, but can, The creature with the angel's face Who tells me hurt, And sees my body go Down into misery? No stopping. Put the smile Where tears have come to dry. The angel's hurt is left; His telling burns. Sometimes a woman's heart has salt, Or too much blood; I tear her breast, And see the blood is mine, Flowing from her but mine, And then I think Perhaps the sky's too bright; And watch my hand, But do not follow it, And feel the pain it gives, But do not ache. 6 RAIN CUTS THE PLACE WE TREAD Rain cuts the place we tread, A sparkling fountain for us With no fountain boy but me To balance on my palms The water from a street of clouds. We sail a boat upon the path, Paddle with leaves Down an ecstatic line of light, Watching, not too aware To make our senses take too much, The unrolled waves So starred with gravel, The living vessels of the garden Drifting in easy time; And, as we watch, the rainbow's foot Stamps on the ground, A legendary horse with hoof and feather, Impatient to be off. He goes across the sky, But, when he's out of sight, The mark his flying tail has left Branches a million shades, A gay parabola Above a boat of leaves and weeds. We try to steer; The stream's fantastically hard, Too stiff to churn with leaves, A sedge of broken stalks and shells. This is a drain of iron plants, For when we touch a flower with our oar We strike but do not stir it. Our boat is made to rise By waves which grow again Their own melodious height, Into the rainbow's shy embrace. We shiver uncomplainingly, And taste upon our lips, this minute, The emerald kiss, And breath on breath of indigo. 7 THE MORNING, SPACE FOR LEDA The morning, space for Leda To stir the water with a buoyant foot, And interlude for violins To catch her sailing down the stream- The phrases on the wood aren't hers; A fishing bird has notes of ivory Alive within his craning throat- Sees the moon still up, Bright, well-held head, And, for a pivot, The shadows from the glassy sea To wet the sky with tears, And daub the unrisen sun with longing. The swan makes strings of water in her wake; Between the moon and sun There's time to pluck a tune upon the harp, Moisten the mouth of sleep To kiss awake My hand with honey that had closed upon a flower. Between the rising and the falling Spring may be green- Under her cloth of trees no sorrow, Under her grassy dress no limbs-And winter follow like an echo The summer voice so warm from fruit That clustered round her shoulders, And hid her uncovered breast. The morning, too, is tune for love, When Leda, on a toe of down, Dances a measure with the swan Who holds her clasped inside his strong, white wings; And darkness, hand in hand with light, Is blind with tears too frail to taste. 8 THE SPIRE CRANES The spire cranes. Its statue is an aviary. From the stone nest it does not let the feathery Carved birds blunt their striking throats on the salt gravel, Pierce the spilt sky with diving wing in weed and heel An inch in froth. Chimes cheat the prison spire, pelter In time like outlaw rains on that priest, water, Time for the swimmers' hands, music for silver lock And mouth. Both note and plume plunge from the spire's hook. Those craning birds are choice for you, songs that jump back To the built voice, or fly with winter to the bells, But do not travel down dumb wind like prodigals. 9 TIME ENOUGH TO ROT Time enough to rot; Toss overhead Your golden ball of blood; Breathe against air, Puffing the light's flame to and fro, Not drawing in your suction's kiss. Your mouth's fine dust Will find such love against the grain, And break through dark; It's acrid in the streets; A paper witch upon her sulphured broom Flies from the gutter. The still go hard, The moving fructify; The walker's apple's black as sin; The waters of his mind draw in. Then swim your head, For you've a sea to lie. 10 IT'S NOT IN MISERY BUT IN OBLIVION It's not in misery but in oblivion, Not vertically in a mood of joy Screaming the spring Over the ancient winter, He'll lie down, and our breath Will chill the roundness of his cheeks, And make his wide mouth home. For we must whisper down the funnel The love we had and glory in his blood Coursing along the channels Until the spout dried up That flowed out of the soil All seasons with the same meticulous power, But the veins must fail. He's not awake to the grave Though we cry down the funnel, Splitting a thought into such hideous moments As drown, over and over, this fever. He's dead, home, has no lover, But our speaking does not thrive In the bosom, or the empty channels. Our evil, when we breathe it, Of dissolution and the empty fall, Won't harm the tent around him, Uneaten and not to be pierced By us in sin or us in gaiety. And who shall tell the amorist Oblivion is so loverless. 11 THE NATURAL DAY AND NIGHT The natural day and night Are full enough to drown my melancholy Of sound and sight, Vigour and harmony in light to none, One hour spend my time for me In tuning impulses to calls; Kinder; So phrase; Don't hurt the chic anatomy Of ladies' needles worn to breaking point Sewing a lie to a credulity, With zest culled from their ladylike heat, Hedgerow, laboratory, and even glasshouse, But the sun cracks it But the stones crack it Out of my hand in stopping up my mouth, My ears, my nose, my eyes, And all my thin prerogative of taste. But while day is there's night to it, And night to it. The black shadow comes down, And the beautiful noise is quelled, For my merry words, So rare- Who taught me trouble? I, said the beetle, out of my thin black womb, Out of my thin black lips, Trouble enough for the world Out of my filthy eyes And my corrupting knowledge- (Continues...) Excerpted from The Poems of DYLAN THOMAS by Thomas Dylan Copyright © 2003 by New Directions Publishing Corporation Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
