The Music of Poetry

Collected Poems 1934-1952 

by Dylan Thomas

My favorite is "Poem in October" but I love to read and reread them all. I guess it is the music that is alive in Thomas' poetry that makes it come alive for me. Here is an example:




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
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honored among wagons I was prince of the apple towns,
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.


And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams...


There is no other way to describe the sounds, the feeling, the being that is his poetry than to speak and listen to it. This is the "sabbath" of my life - the spirit of life in the music of poetry.


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