And hear all day long the thrush repeat his song.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE GALLOWS
There was a weasel lived in the sun
With all his family,
Till a keeper shot him with his gun
And hung him up on a tree,
Where he swings in the wind and rain, 5
In the sun and in the snow,
Without pleasure, without pain,
On the dead oak tree bough.
There was a crow who was no sleeper,
But a thief and a murderer 10
Till a very late hour; and this keeper
Made him one of the things that were,
To hang and flap in rain and wind,
In the sun and in the snow.
There are no more sins to be sinned 15
On the dead oak tree bough.
There was a magpie, too,
Had a long tongue and a long tail;
He could both talk and do –
But what did that avail? 20
He, too, flaps in the wind and rain
Alongside weasel and crow,
Without pleasure, without pain,
On the dead oak tree bough.
And many other beasts 25
And birds, skin, bone and feather,
Have been taken from their feasts
And hung up there together,
To swing and have endless leisure
In the sun and in the snow, 30
Without pain, without pleasure,
On the dead oak tree bough.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE DARK FOREST
Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead
Hang stars like seeds of light
In vain, though not since they were sown was bred
Anything more bright.
And evermore mighty multitudes ride 5
About, nor enter in;
Of the other multitudes that dwell inside
Never yet was one seen.
The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite
Outside is gold and white, 10
Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet
The others, day or night.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
WHEN HE SHOULD LAUGH
When he should laugh the wise man knows full well:
For he knows what is truly laughable.
But wiser is the man who laughs also,
Or holds his laughter, when the foolish do.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
HOW AT ONCE
How at once should I know,
When stretched in the harvest blue
I saw the swift’s black bow,
That I would not have that view
Another day 5
Until next May
Again it is due?
The same year after year –
But with the swift alone.
With other things I but fear 10
That they will be over and done
Suddenly
And I only see
Them to know them gone.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
GONE, GONE AGAIN
Gone, gone again,
May, June, July,
And August gone,
Again gone by,
Not memorable 5
Save that I saw them go,
As past the empty quays
The rivers flow.
And now again,
In the harvest rain, 10
The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees,
As when I was young –
And when the lost one was here –
And when the war began 15
To turn young men to dung.
Look at the old house,
Outmoded, dignified,
Dark and untenanted,
With grass growing instead 20
Of the footsteps of life,
The friendliness, the strife;
Youth, love, age and pain:
I am something like that; 25
Only I am not dead,
Still breathing and interested
In the house that is not dark: –
I am something like that:
Not one pane to reflect the sun, 30
For the schoolboys to throw at –
They have broken every one.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THAT GIRL’S CLEAR EYES
That girl’s clear eyes utterly concealed all
Except that there was something to reveal.
And what did mine say in the interval?
No more: no less. They are but as a seal
Not to be broken till after I am dead; 5
And then vainly. Every one of us
This morning at our tasks left nothing said,
In spite of many words. We were sealed thus,
Like tombs. Nor until now could I admit
That all I cared for was the pleasure and pain 10
I tasted in the stony square sunlit,
Or the dark cloisters, or shade of airy plane,
While music blazed and children, line after line,
Marched past, hiding the ‘Seventeen Thirty-Nine’.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
WHAT WILL THEY DO?
What will they do when I am gone? It is plain
That they will do without me as the rain
Can do without the flowers and the grass
That profit by it and must perish without.
I have but seen them in the loud street pass; 5
And I was naught to them. I turned about
To see them disappearing carelessly.
But what if I in them as they in me
Nourished what has great value and no price?
Almost I thought that rain thirsts for a draught 10
Which only in the blossom’s chalice lies,
Until that one turned back and lightly laughed.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE TRUMPET
Rise up, rise up,
And, as the trumpet blowing
Chases the dreams of men,
As the dawn glowing
The stars that left unlit 5
The land and water,
Rise up and scatter
The dew that covers
The print of last night’s lovers –
Scatter it, scatter it! 10
While you are listening
To the clear horn,
Forget, men, everything
On this earth newborn,
Except that it is lovelier 15
Than any mysteries.
Open your eyes to the air
That has washed the eyes of the stars
Through all the dewy night:
Up with the light, 20
To the old wars;
Arise, arise!
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
WHEN FIRST
When first I came here I had hope,
Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat
My heart at sight of the tall slope
Of grass and yews, as if my feet
Only by scaling its steps of chalk 5
Would see something no other hill
Ever disclosed. And now I walk
Down it the last time. Never will
My heart beat so again at sight
Of any hill although as fair
10
And loftier. For infinite
The change, late unperceived, this year,
The twelfth, suddenly, shows me plain.
Hope now, – not health, nor cheerfulness,
Since they can come and go again, 15
As often one brief hour witnesses, –
Just hope has gone for ever. Perhaps
I may love other hills yet more
Than this: the future and the maps
Hide something I was waiting for. 20
One thing I know, that love with chance
And use and time and necessity
Will grow, and louder the heart’s dance
At parting than at meeting be.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE CHILD IN THE ORCHARD
‘He rolls in the orchard: he is stained with moss
And with earth, the solitary old white horse.
Where is his father and where is his mother
Among all the brown horses? Has he a brother?
I know the swallow, the hawk, and the hern; 5
But there are two million things for me to learn.
‘Who was the lady that rode the white horse
With rings and bells to Banbury Cross?
Was there no other lady in England beside
That a nursery rhyme could take for a ride? 10
The swift, the swallow, the hawk, and the hern.
There are two million things for me to learn.
‘Was there a man once who straddled across
The back of the Westbury White Horse
Over there on Salisbury Plain’s green wall? 15
Was he bound for Westbury, or had he a fall?
The swift, the swallow, the hawk, and the hern.
There are two million things for me to learn.
‘Out of all the white horses I know three,
At the age of six; and it seems to me 20
There is so much to learn, for men,
That I dare not go to bed again.
The swift, the swallow, the hawk, and the hern.
There are millions of things for me to learn.’
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE LONG SMALL ROOM
The long small room that showed willows in the west
Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled,
Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessed
What need or accident made them so build.
Only the moon, the mouse and the sparrow peeped 5
In from the ivy round the casement thick.
Of all they saw and heard there they shall keep
The tale for the old ivy and older brick.
When I look back I am like moon, sparrow and mouse
That witnessed what they could never understand 10
Or alter or prevent in the dark house.
One thing remains the same – this my right hand
Crawling crab-like over the clean white page,
Resting awhile each morning on the pillow,
Then once more starting to crawl on towards age. 15
The hundred last leaves stream upon the willow.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
LIGHTS OUT
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late; 5
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn’s first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers 10
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends,
All pleasure and all trouble, 15
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look 20
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter and leave alone,
I know not how.
The tall forest towers; 25
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself. 30
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE SHEILING
It stands alone
Up in a land of stone
All worn like ancient stairs,
A land of rocks and trees
Nourished on wind and stone. 5
And all within
Long delicate has been;
By arts and kindliness
Coloured, sweetened, and warmed
For many years has been. 10
Safe resting there
Men hear in the travelling air
But music, pictures see
In the same daily land
Painted by the wild air. 15
One maker’s mind
Made both, and the house is kind
To the land that gave it peace,
And the stone has taken the house
To its cold heart and is kind.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
THE LANE
Some day, I think, there will be people enough
In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries
Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight
Broad lane where now September hides herself
In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse. 5
Today, where yesterday a hundred sheep
Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway
Of waters that no vessel ever sailed…
It is a kind of spring: the chaffinch tries
His song. For heat it is like summer too. 10
This might be winter’s quiet. While the glint
Of hollies dark in the swollen hedges lasts –
One mile – and those bells ring, little I know
Or heed if time be still the same, until
The lane ends and once more all is the same. 15
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
OUT IN THE DARK
Out in the dark over the snow
The fallow fawns invisible go
With the fallow doe;
And the winds blow
Fast as the stars are slow. 5
Stealthily the dark haunts round
And, when a lamp goes, without sound
At a swifter bound
Than the swiftest hound,
Arrives, and all else is drowned; 10
And star and I and wind and deer
Are in the dark together, – near,
Yet far, – and fear
Drums on my ear
In that sage company drear. 15
How weak and little is the light,
All the universe of sight,
Love and delight,
Before the might,
If you love it not, of night. 20
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List of poems in alphabetical order
THE SORROW OF TRUE LOVE
The sorrow of true love is a great sorrow
And true love parting blackens a bright morrow.
Yet almost they equal joys, since their despair
Is but hope blinded by its tears, and clear
Above the storm the heavens wait to be seen. 5
But greater sorrow from less love has been
That can mistake lack of despair for hope
And kno
ws not tempest nor the perfect scope
Of summer, but a frozen drizzle perpetual
Of drops that from remorse and pity fall 10
And cannot ever shine in the sun or thaw,
Removed eternally from the sun’s law.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
The Poems
Lincoln College at Oxford University, which Thomas attended
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
UP IN THE WIND
NOVEMBER
MARCH
OLD MAN
THE SIGNPOST
AFTER RAIN
INTERVAL
THE OTHER
THE MOUNTAIN CHAPEL
BIRDS’ NESTS
THE MANOR FARM
AN OLD SONG I
AN OLD SONG II
THE COMBE
THE NEW YEAR
THE HOLLOW WOOD
THE SOURCE
THE PENNY WHISTLE
A PRIVATE
SNOW
ADLESTROP
TEARS
OVER THE HILLS
THE LOFTY SKY
THE CUCKOO
SWEDES
THE UNKNOWN BIRD
BEAUTY
THE MILL-POND
MAN AND DOG
THE GYPSY
AMBITION
PARTING
HOUSE AND MAN
FIRST KNOWN WHEN LOST
MAY 23
THE BARN
HOME
THE OWL
THE CHILD ON THE CLIFFS
THE BRIDGE