The View From the Window by R. S. Thomas Like a painting it is set before o But less brittle, ageless; these c Are renewed daily with variations Of light and distance that no pain Achieves or suggests. Then there 3
No by R. S. Thomas And one said, This man can sing; Let’s listen to him. But the othe Dirt on his mind, said, No, let’s Queer him. And the first, being w Consented. So the Thing came 1
Reflections by R. S. Thomas The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them. 4
Thirteen Blackbirds Looking at a Man by R. S. Thomas It is calm. It is as though we lived in a garden that had not yet arrived at the knowledge of
Night and Morning by R. S. Thomas One night of tempest I arose and Along the Menai shore on dreaming The wind was strong, and savage sw And the waves blustered on Caerna But on the morrow, when I passed
The Other by R. S. Thomas There are nights that are so still that I can hear the small owl call far off and a fox barking miles away. It is then that I lie in the lean hours awake listening
The Hill Farmer Speaks by R. S. Thomas I am the farmer, stripped of love And thought and grace by the land’ But what I am saying over the fie Desolate acres, rough with dew, Is, Listen, listen, I am a man li 1
Ninetieth Birthday by R. S. Thomas You go up the long track That will take a car, but is best On slow foot, noting the lichen That writes history on the page Of the grey rock. Trees are about
Epitaph by R. S. Thomas The poem in the rock and The poem in the mind Are not one. It was in dying I tried to make them so.
Welsh History by R. S. Thomas We were a people taut for war; the Were no harder, the thin grass Clothed them more warmly than the Shirts our small bones. We fought, and were always in retr 1