Results 1 to 1 of 1

Thread: Dylan Thomas

  1. #1
    Pillar of the Community margaret's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Posts
    2,352

    Default Dylan Thomas

    POEM IN OCTOBER

    Song by Dylan Thomas





    It was my thirtieth year to heaven
    Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
    And the mussel pooled and the heron priested shore
    The morning beckoned with water praying and call of seagull and rook
    And the knock of sailing boats on the net-webbed wall
    Myself to set foot that second
    In the still sleeping town and set forth

    My birthday began with the water birds
    And the birds of the winged trees flying my name
    Above the farms and the white horses
    And I rose in a rainy autumn
    And walked abroad in shower of all my days
    High tide and the heron dived
    When I took the road over the border
    And the gates of the town closed as the town awoke

    A springful of larks in a rolling cloud
    And the roadside bushes brimming with whistling blackbirds
    And the sun of October, summery on the hill's shoulder
    Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly come in the morning
    Where I wandered and listened to the rain wringing wind blow cold
    In the wood faraway under me

    Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
    And over the sea-wet church the size of a snail
    With its horns through mist and the castle brown as owls
    But all the gardens of spring and summer
    Were blooming in the tall tales beyond the border
    And under the lark full cloud
    There could I marvel my birthday away
    But the weather turned around

    It turned away from the blithe country
    And down the other air and the blue altered sky
    Streamed again a wonder of summer
    With apples, pears and red currants
    And I saw in the turning, so clearly, a child's forgotten mornings
    When he walked with his mother through the parables of sunlight
    And the legends of the green chapels

    And the twice-told fields of infancy
    That his tears burned my cheeks, and his heart moved in mine
    These were the woods the river and the sea
    Where a boy in the listening summertime of the dead
    Whispered the truth of his joy to the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide
    And the mystery sang alive
    Still in the water and singing birds

    And there could I marvel my birthday away
    But the weather turned around
    And the true joy of the long dead child sang burning in the sun
    It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
    Though the town below lay leaved with October blood
    O may my heart's truth
    Still be sung
    On this high hill in a year's turning


    ...
    Last edited by margaret; 07-10-2021 at 06:37 AM.
    “I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me - yet I sometimes long for it.”

    - Lord Byron.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •