R. S. Thomas
Poetry is that / which arrives at the intellect / by way of the heart.Collection: Heart
The silence holds with its gloved hand the wild hawk of the mind.Collection: Hands
To live in Wales is to be conscious at dusk of the spilled blood that went into the making of the wild skyCollection: Blood
The old men ask for more time; the young waste it. And the philosopher simply smiles, knowing there is none there.Collection: Men
The meaning is in the waiting.Collection: Waiting
A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.Collection: Moving
somewhere within sight of the tree of poetry that is eternity wearing the green leaves of time .Collection: Sight
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. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce with the furies. A mirror's temperature is always zero. It is ice in the veins. It's camera is an x-ray. It is a chalice held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.Collection: Zero
Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being... ultimate reality is what we call God.Collection: Reality
Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.Collection: Dream
Sunlight 's a thing that needs a window Before it enter a dark room. Windows don't happen." So two old poets, Hunched at their beer in the low haze Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran Noisily by them, glib with prose.Collection: Beer
I have known exile and a wild passion Of longing changing to a cold ache. King, beggar and fool , I have been all by turns, Knowing the body's sweetness, the mind 's treason ; Taliesin still, I show you a new world , risen, Stubborn with beauty , out of the heart 's need .Collection: Kings
Is there a place here for the spirit ? Is there time on this brief platform for anything other than mind 's failure to explain itself?Collection: Mind
We live in our own world , A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees, The adult subterfuge.Collection: Hands
Verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beautyCollection: Flower
Even God had a Welsh name : He spoke to him in the old language; He was to have a peculiar care For the Welsh people. History showed us He was too big to be nailed to the wall Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him Between the boards of a black book .Collection: Wall
I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.Collection: Real
The nearest we approach God ...is as creative beings. The poet, by echoing the primary imagination, recreates. Through his work he forces those who read him to do the same, thus bringing them... nearer to the actual being of God as displayed in action.Collection: Imagination
Now the power of the imagination is a unifying power, hence the force of metaphor; and the poet is the supreme manipulator of metaphor... the world needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best are poetry and religion.Collection: Two
I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.Collection: Men
I have nowhere to go. The swift satellites show The clock of my whole being is slow.Collection: Nowhere To Go
The deep spaces between stars , Fathomless as the cold shadow His mind cast.Collection: Stars
Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder.Collection: Men
You cannot find the centre Where we dance , where we play, Where life is still asleep Under the closed flower , Under the smooth shell Of eggs in the cupped nest That mock the faded blue Of your remoter heaven .Collection: Flower
I have been Merlin wandering in the woods Of a far country, where the winds waken Unnatural voices , my mind broken By a sudden acquaintance with man's rage.Collection: Country
It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart . I must stay here with my hurt.Collection: Hurt
They left no books , Memorial to their lonely thought In grey parishes: rather they wrote On men's hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten. God in his time Or out of time will correct this.Collection: Lonely