Should Lanterns Shine
Viewed 272 timesShould Lanterns Shine
by Dylan Thomas
Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, and any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast.
I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind.
I have heard may years of telling,
And many years should see some change.
The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground.
Miscellany
Other poems by Dylan Thomas (read randomly)
A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
All all and all the dry worlds lever,
Stage of the ice, the solid ocean,
All from the oil, the pound of lava.
When the morning was waking over the war
He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died,
The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide,
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
Before I knocked and flesh let enter,
With liquid hands tapped on the womb,
I who was shapeless as the water
One Christmas was so much like another, in those ye …
voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that …
whether it snowed for twelve...
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
On almost the incendiary eve
Of several near deaths,
When one at the great least of your best loved
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Ears in the turrets hear
Hands grumble on the door,
Eyes in the gables see
Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride
