Author Edward Thomas - Full Online Book

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Words

OUT of us allThat make rhymes,Will you chooseSometimes--As the winds useA crack in a wallOr a drain,Their joy or their painTo whistle through--Choose me,You English words?I know you:You are light as dreams,Tough as oak,Precious as gold,As poppies and corn,Or an old cloak:Sweet as our birdsTo the ear,As the burnet roseIn the heatOf Midsummer:Strange as the racesOf dead and unborn:Strange and sweetEqually,And familiar,To the eye,As the dearest facesThat a man knows,And as lost homes are:But though older farThan oldest yew,--As our hills are, old.--Worn newAgain and again:Young as our streamsAfter rain:And as dearAs the earth which you proveThat we love.Make me contentWith... Poems - Post by : boreir - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2319

Cock-crow

OUT of the wood of thoughts that grows by nightTo be cut down by the sharp axe of light,--Out of the night, two cocks together crow,Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,Each facing each as in a coat of arms:The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.(The end)Edward Thomas's poem: Cock-Crow... Poems - Post by : monte888 - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 3778

Lights Out

I HAVE come to the borders of sleep,The unfathomable deepForest where all must loseTheir way, however straight,Or winding, soon or late;They cannot choose.Many a road and trackThat, since the dawn's first crack,Up to the forest brink,Deceived the travellersSuddenly now blurs,And in they sink.Here love ends,Despair, ambition ends,All pleasure and all trouble,Although most sweet or bitter,Here ends in sleep that is sweeterThan tasks most noble.There is not any bookOr face of dearest lookThat I would not turn from nowTo go into the unknownI must enter and leave aloneI know not how.The tall forest towers;Its cloudy foliage lowersAhead, shelf above shelf;Its silence I... Poems - Post by : branson - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 3535

An Old Song (the Sun Set, The Wind Fell, The Sea)

THE sun set, the wind fell, the seaWas like a mirror shaking:The one small wave that clapped the landA mile-long snake of foam was makingWhere tide had smoothed and wind had driedThe vacant sand.A light divided the swollen cloudsAnd lay most perfectlyLike a straight narrow footbridge brightThat crossed over the sea to me;And no one else in the whole worldSaw that same sight.I walked elate, my bridge alwaysJust one step from my feet:A robin sang, a shade in shade:And all I did was to repeat:"I'll go no more a-rovingWith you, fair maid."The sailors' song of merry lovingWith dusk and sea-gull's mewingMixed... Poems - Post by : IrishDitty - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2169

The Penny Whistle

THE new moon hangs like an ivory bugleIn the naked frosty blue;And the ghylls of the forest, already blackenedBy Winter, are blackened anew.The brooks that cut up and increase the forest,As if they had never knownThe sun, are roaring with black hollow voicesBetwixt rage and a moan.But still the caravan-hut by the holliesLike a kingfisher gleams between:Round the mossed old hearths of the charcoal-burnersFirst primroses ask to be seen.The charcoal-burners are black, but their linenBlows white on the line;And white the letter the girl is readingUnder that crescent fine;And her brother who hides apart in a thicket,Slowly and surely playingOn a... Poems - Post by : Dougi - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 3329

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.(The end)Edward Thomas's poem: When He Should Laugh... Poems - Post by : katsharad - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 1454

There's Nothing Like The Sun

THERE'S nothing like the sun as the year dies,Kind as it can be, this world being made so,To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,To all things that it touches except snow,Whether on mountain side or street of town.The south wall warms me: November has begun,Yet never shone the sun as fair as nowWhile the sweet last-left damsons from the boughWith spangles of the morning's storm drop downBecause the starling shakes it, whistling whatOnce swallows sang. But I have not forgotThat there is nothing, too, like March's sun,Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,Or January's, or February's, great... Poems - Post by : therd3 - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 3596

"home"

FAIR was the morning, fair our tempers, andWe had seen nothing fairer than that land,Though strange, and the untrodden snow that madeWild of the tame, casting out all that wasNot wild and rustic and old; and we were glad.Fair, too, was afternoon, and first to passWere we that league of snow, next the north windThere was nothing to return for, except need,And yet we sang nor ever stopped for speed,As we did often with the start behind.Faster still strode we when we came in sightOf the cold roofs where we must spend the night.Happy we had not been there, nor could... Poems - Post by : WastedFate - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2069

Birds' Nests

THE summer nests uncovered by autumn wind.Some torn, others dislodged, all dark.Everyone sees them: low or high in tree,Or hedge, or single bush, they hang like a mark.Since there's no need of eyes to see them withI cannot help a little shameThat I missed most, even at eye's level, tillThe leaves blew off and made the seeing no game.'Tis a light pang. I like to see the nestsStill in their places, now first known,At home and by far roads. Boys knew them not,Whatever jays and squirrels may have done.And most I like the winter nests deep-hidThat leaves and berries fell into;Once... Poems - Post by : Chris_Koch - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2571

The Gallows

THERE was a weasel lived in the sunWith all his family,Till a keeper shot him with his gunAnd hung him up on a tree,Where he swings in the wind and rain,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 murdererTill a very late hour; and this keeperMade 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 sinnedOn the dead oak tree bough.There was a magpie, too,Had a... Poems - Post by : allened - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 1799

The Sheiling

IT stands aloneUp in a land of stoneAll worn like ancient stairs,A land of rocks and treesNourished on wind and stone.And all withinLong delicate has been;By arts and kindlinessColoured, sweetened, and warmedFor many years has been.Safe resting thereMen hear in the travelling airBut music, pictures seeIn the same daily landPainted by the wild air.One maker's mindMade both, and the house is kindTo the land that gave it peace,And the stone has taken the houseTo its cold heart and is kind.(The end)Edward Thomas's poem: Sheiling... Poems - Post by : JPatrick - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 1027

November

NOVEMBER'S days are thirty:November's earth is dirty,Those thirty days, from first to last;And the prettiest things on ground are the pathsWith morning and evening hobnails dinted,With foot and wing-tip overprintedOr separately charactered,Of little beast and little bird.The fields are mashed by sheep, the roadsMake the worst going, the best the woodsWhere dead leaves upward and downward scatter.Few care for the mixture of earth and water,Twig, leaf, flint, thorn,Straw, feather, all that men scorn,Pounded up and sodden by flood,Condemned as mud.But of all the months when earth is greenerNot one has clean skies that are cleaner.Clean and clear and sweet and cold,They... Poems - Post by : jared1249 - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 972

Liberty

THE last light has gone out of the world, exceptThis moonlight lying on the grass like frostBeyond the brink of the tall elm's shadowIt is as if everything else had sleptMany an age, unforgotten and lostThe men that were, the things done, long ago,All I have thought; and but the moon and ILive yet and here stand idle over the graveWhere all is buried. Both have libertyTo dream what we could do if we were freeTo do some thing we had desired long,The moon and I. There's none less free than whoDoes nothing and has nothing else to do,Being free only... Poems - Post by : eywer - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2858

The Long Small Room

THE long small room that showed willows in the westNarrowed up to the end the fireplace filled,Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessedWhat need or accident made them so build.Only the moon, the mouse and the sparrow peepedIn from the ivy round the casement thick.Of all they saw and heard there they shall keepThe tale for the old ivy and older brick.When I look back I am like moon, sparrow and mouseThat witnessed what they could never understandOr alter or prevent in the dark house.One thing remains the same--this my right handCrawling crab-like over the clean white page,Resting awhile... Poems - Post by : freedom - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2613

October

THE green elm with the one great bough of goldLets leaves into the grass slip, one by one,--The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,Harebell and scabious and tormentil,That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,Bow down to; and the wind travels too lightTo shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;The gossamers wander at their own will.At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.The rich scene has grown fresh again and newAs Spring and to the touch is not more coolThan it is warm to the gaze; and now I mightAs happy be as earth is beautiful,Were I some other... Poems - Post by : myriam - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2066

The Sun Used To Shine

THE sun used to shine while we two walkedSlowly together, paused and startedAgain, and sometimes mused, sometimes talkedAs either pleased, and cheerfully partedEach night. We never disagreedWhich gate to rest on. The to beAnd the late past we gave small heed.We turned from men or poetryTo rumours of the war remoteOnly till both stood disinclinedFor aught but the yellow flavorous coatOf an apple wasps had undermined;Or a sentry of dark betonies,The stateliest of small flowers on earth,At the forest verge; or crocusesPale purple as if they had their birthIn sunless Hades fields. The warCame back to mind with the moonriseWhich soldiers... Poems - Post by : gtelivwa - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 1426

Gone, Gone Again

GONE, gone again,May, June, July,And August gone,Again gone by,Not memorableSave that I saw them go,As past the empty quaysThe rivers flow.And now again,In the harvest rain,The Blenheim orangesFall grubby from the trees,As when I was young--And when the lost one was here--And when the war beganTo turn young men to dung.Look at the old house,Outmoded, dignified,Dark and untenanted,With grass growing insteadOf the footsteps of life,The friendliness, the strife;In its beds have lainYouth, love, age and pain:I am something like that;Only I am not dead,Still breathing and interestedIn the house that is not dark:--I am something like that:Not one pane to reflect... Poems - Post by : FayeB - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 2889

How At Once

How at once should I know,When stretched in the harvest blueI saw the swift's black bow,That I would not have that viewAnother dayUntil next MayAgain it is due?The same year after year--But with the swift alone.With other things I but fearThat they will be over and doneSuddenlyAnd I only seeThem to know them gone.(The end)Edward Thomas's poem: How At Once... Poems - Post by : Deena - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 848

Haymaking

AFTER night's thunder far away had rolledThe fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,Like the first gods before they made the worldAnd misery, swimming the stormless seaIn beauty and in divine gaiety.The smooth white empty road was lightly strewnWith leaves--the holly's Autumn falls in June--And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.The mill-foot water tumbled white and litWith tossing crystals, happier than any crowdOf children pouring out of school aloud.And in the little thickets where a sleeperFor ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeperAnd garden warbler sang unceasingly;While over them shrill shrieked in... Poems - Post by : garys_pdx - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 1890

Tall Nettles

TALL nettles cover up, as they have doneThese many springs, the rusty harrow, the ploughLong worn out, and the roller made of stone:Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.This corner of the farmyard I like most:As well as any bloom upon a flowerI like the dust on the nettles, never lostExcept to prove the sweetness of a shower.(The end)Edward Thomas's poem: Tall Nettles... Poems - Post by : kirkvan - Date : October 2011 - Author : Edward Thomas - Read : 3702

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