Dylan Thomas

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flowerDrives my green age; that blasts the roots of treesIs my destroyer”

“My birthday began with the water -Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name.”

“I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't know, because I won't ever dare ask that question.”

“Teach me the love that is evergreen after the fall leaved/Grave”

“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobbledstreets silent and the hunched courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”

“On No Work of WordsOn no work of words now for three lean months in the bloodyBelly of the rich year and the big purse of my bodyI bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:To take to give is all, return what is hungrily givenPuffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,The lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft.To lift to leave from the treasures of man is pleasing deathThat will rake at last all currencies of the marked breathAnd count the taken, forsaken mysteries in a bad dark.To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice.Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seasIf I take to burn or return this world which is each man's work.”

“Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.She did not hear him, but stood over his bed and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow.Hold my hand, he said, and then: why are your putting the sheet over my face?”

“All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find.”

“أعلم أننا لسنا قديسون أو عذارى أو مخابيل؛ نحن ندري كل شهوة وكل نكتة من نكات المراحيض, ونعرف أكثرية الناس الوسخين؛ بإمكاننا أن نستقل الحافلات ونعد الفكة ونَعبر الطرق وننطق بجمل حقيقية. بيد أن براءتنا عميقة عمقاً لا حد له, وسرنا المشين هو أننا لا نفقه شيئاً على الإطلاق, أمَّا سرنا الباطني المروع فهو أننا لا نكترث لهذا الجهل”

“Come on up, boys-I'm dead.”

“This poem has been called obscure. I refuse to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence, or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime, it is more compressed.”

“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”

“Why do men think you can pick love up and re-light it like a candle? Women know when love is over.”

“Clown in the Moon"My tears are like the quiet driftOf petals from some magic rose;And all my grief flows from the riftOf unremembered skies and snows.I think, that if I touched the earth,It would crumble;It is so sad and beautiful,So tremulously like a dream.”

“The Hunchback in the ParkThe hunchback in the park A solitary mister Propped between trees and water From the opening of the garden lock That lets the trees and water enter Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark Eating bread from a newspaper Drinking water from the chained cup That the children filled with gravel In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship Slept at night in a dog kennel But nobody chained him up. Like the park birds he came early Like the water he sat down And Mister they called Hey mister The truant boys from the town Running when he had heard them clearly On out of sound Past lake and rockery Laughing when he shook his paper Hunchbacked in mockery Through the loud zoo of the willow groves Dodging the park keeper With his stick that picked up leaves. And the old dog sleeper Alone between nurses and swans While the boys among willows Made the tigers jump out of their eyes To roar on the rockery stones And the groves were blue with sailors Made all day until bell time A woman figure without fault Straight as a young elm Straight and tall from his crooked bones That she might stand in the night After the locks and chains All night in the unmade park After the railings and shrubberies The birds the grass the trees the lake And the wild boys innocent as strawberries Had followed the hunchback To his kennel in the dark.”

“Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies.”

“Love drips & gathers, but the fallen bloodShall calm her sores..."-Thomas, The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”

“These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and confusions, are written for the love of man and in Praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't.”

“Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.Then, when his soul is naked, is he oneWith the man in the wind, and the west moon, With the harmonious thunder of the sun”

“Great is the hand that holds dominion overMan by a scribbled name.”

“In my craft or sullen artExercised in the still nightWhen only the moon ragesAnd the lovers lie abedWith all their griefs in their arms,I labour by singing lightNot for ambition or breadOr the strut and trade of charmsOn the ivory stagesBut for the common wagesOf their most secret heart.Not for the proud man apartFrom the raging moon I writeOn these spindrift pagesNor for the towering deadWith their nightingales and psalmsBut for the lovers, their armsRound the griefs of the ages,Who pay no praise or wagesNor heed my craft or art.”

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

“And death shall have no dominion.Under the windings of the seaThey lying long shall not die windily;Twisting on racks when sinews give way,Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;Faith in their hands shall snap in two,And the unicorn evils run them through;Split all ends up they shan't crack;And death shall have no dominion.”

“To begin, at the beginning...”

“Wales: The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it!”

“Dark is a way and light is a place,Heaven that never wasNor will be ever is always true"Poem on His Birthday”

“Youth calls to age across the tired years: 'What have you found,' he cries, 'what have you sought?" 'What have you found,' age answers through his tears, 'What have you sought.”

“And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you.”

“And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?”

“I love you so much I’ll never be able to tell you; I’m frightened to tell you. I can always feel your heart. Dance tunes are always right: I love you body and soul: —and I suppose body means that I want to touch you and be in bed with you, and i suppose soul means that i can hear you and see you and love you in every single, single thing in the whole world asleep or awake”

“Some people react physically to the magic of poetry, to the moments, that is, of authentic revelation, of the communication, the sharing, at its highest level...A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.”

“I have longed to move awayFrom the hissing of the spent lieAnd the old terrors' continual cryGrowing more terrible as the dayGoes over the hill into the deep sea;I have longed to move awayFrom the repetition of salutes,For there are ghosts in the airAnd ghostly echoes on paper,And the thunder of calls and notes.I have longed to move away but am afraid;Some life, yet unspent, might explodeOut of the old lie burning on the ground,And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.Neither by night's ancient fear,The parting of hat from hair,Pursed lips at the receiver,Shall I fall to death's feather.By these I would not care to die,Half convention and half lie.”

“And books which told me everything about the wasp, except why.”

“I know we're not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.”

“My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.”

“The only sea I saw Was the seesaw sea With you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs.”

“Friend, my enemy, I call you out. You, you, you there with a bad thorn in your side. You there, my friend, with a winning air. Who pawned the lie on me when he looked brassly at my shyest secret. With my whole heart under your hammer. That though I loved him for his faults as much as for his good. My friend were an enemy upon stilts with his head in a cunning cloud. -Dylan Thomas”

“Our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.”

“Me, Polly Garter, under the washing line, giving the breast in the garden to my bonny new baby. Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies. And where's their fathers live, my love? Over the hills and far away. You're looking up at me now. I know what you're thinking, you poor little milky creature. You're thinking, you're no better than you should be, Polly, and that's good enough for me. Oh, isn't life a terrible thing, thank God?”

“Poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.”

“I sang in my chains like the sea”

“[I'm]a freak user of words, not a poet.”

“An ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ... by the side of a long and splendid curving shore. This sea-town was my world.”

“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.”

“I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record . . .”

“When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”

“I think, that if I touched the earth,It would crumble;It is so sad and beautiful,So tremulously like a dream.”

“I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, down throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.”

“Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea.”

“An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.”