War poems
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The Seed-At-Zero
© Dylan Thomas
The seed-at-zero shall not storm
That town of ghosts, the trodden womb,
With her rampart to his tapping,
No god-in-hero tumble down
The Conversation Of Prayer
© Dylan Thomas
The conversation of prayers about to be said
By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs
Who climbs to his dying love in her high room,
The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move
And the other full of tears that she will be dead,
Incarnate Devil
© Dylan Thomas
Incarnate devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple,
And God walked there who was a fiddling warden
And played down pardon from the heavens' hill.
From Love's First Fever To Her Plague
© Dylan Thomas
From the first print of the unshodden foot, the lifting
Hand, the breaking of the hair,
From the first scent of the heart, the warning ghost,
And to the first dumb wonder at the flesh,
The sun was red, the moon was grey,
The earth and sky were as two mountains meeting.
Especially When The October Wind
© Dylan Thomas
Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
Lament
© Dylan Thomas
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
Love In The Asylum
© Dylan Thomas
A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds
Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines
© Dylan Thomas
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A Child's Christmas In Wales
© Dylan Thomas
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.
Fern Hill
© Dylan Thomas
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Long Distance II
© Tony Harrison
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
National Trust
© Tony Harrison
Bottomless pits. There's on in Castleton,
and stout upholders of our law and order
one day thought its depth worth wagering on
and borrowed a convict hush-hush from his warder
and winched him down; and back, flayed, grey, mad, dumb.
V
© Tony Harrison
Next millennium you'll have to search quite hard
to find my slab behind the family dead,
butcher, publican, and baker, now me, bard
adding poetry to their beef, beer and bread.
When I hoped, I recollect
© Emily Dickinson
When I hoped, I recollect
Just the place I stood --
At a Window facing West --
Roughest Air -- was good --
What care the Dead, for Chanticleer --
© Emily Dickinson
What care the Dead, for Chanticleer --
What care the Dead for Day?
'Tis late your Sunrise vex their face --
And Purple Ribaldry -- of Morning
We miss a Kinsman more
© Emily Dickinson
We miss a Kinsman more
When warranted to see
Than when withheld of Oceans
From possibility
Warm in her Hand these accents lie
© Emily Dickinson
Warm in her Hand these accents lie
While faithful and afar
The Grace so awkward for her sake
Its fond subjection wear --
Too cold is this
© Emily Dickinson
Too cold is this
To warm with Sun --
Too stiff to bended be,
To joint this Agate were a work --
Outstaring Masonry --
To see her is a Picture --
© Emily Dickinson
To see her is a Picture --
To hear her is a Tune --
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June --
This that would greet -- an hour ago --
© Emily Dickinson
This that would greet -- an hour ago --
Is quaintest Distance -- now --
Had it a Guest from Paradise --
Nor glow, would it, nor bow --
