Edward Thomas Poems

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 She had a name among the children;
But no one loved though someone owned
Her, locked her out of doors at bedtime
And had her kittens duly drowned.

In Spring, nevertheless, this cat
Ate blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales,
And birds of bright voice and plume and flight,
As well as scraps from neighbours’ pails.

I loathed and hated her for this;
One speckle on a thrush’s breast
Was worth a...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors
Many a frozen night, and merrily
Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:
"At Mrs Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," said he,
"I slept." None knew which bush. Above the town,
Beyond `The Drover', a hundred spot the down
In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps
More sound in France -that, too, he secret keeps....Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 Yes, I remember Adlestrop -- 
The name, because one afternoon 
Of heat the express-train drew up there 
Unwontedly. It was late June. 

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. 
No one left and no one came 
On the bare platform. What I saw 
Was Adlestrop -- only the name 

And willows, willow-herb, and grass, 
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 All day and night, save winter, every weather,
Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, 
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.

Out of the blacksmith's cavern comes the ringing
Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn
The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing -
The sounds that for these...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 Thinking of her had saddened me at first,
Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie
Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame,
A living thing, not what before I nursed,
The shadow I was growing to love almost,
The phantom, not the creature with bright eye
That I had thought never to see, once lost.

She found the celandines of February
Always before us...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 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; 
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track 
That, since the dawn's first crack, 
Up to the forest brink, 
Deceived the travellers, 
Suddenly now blurs, 
And in they sink.

Here love ends, 
Despair, ambition ends, 
All...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 No one so much as you
Loves this my clay, 
Or would lament as you
Its dying day. 

You know me through and through
Though I have not told, 
And though with what you know
You are not bold. 

None ever was so fair
As I thought you: 
Not a word can I bear
Spoken against you. 

All that I ever did
For you seemed coarse
Compared...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 Old Man, or Lads-Love, - in the name there’s nothing
To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, 
The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, 
Growing with rosemary and lavender.
Even to one that knows it well, the names
Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: 
At least, what that is clings not to the names
In spite of time....Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 IT was a perfect day 
For sowing; just 
As sweet and dry was the ground 
As tobacco-dust. 

I tasted deep the hour 
Between the far 
Owl's chuckling first soft cry 
And the first star. 

A long stretched hour it was; 
Nothing undone 
Remained; the early seeds 
All safely sown. 

And now, hark at the rain, 
Windless and light, 
Half...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 OVER the land half freckled with snow half-thawed 
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed, 
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as a flower of grass, 
What we below could not see, Winter pass....Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 The cherry trees bend over and are shedding,
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed....Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 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
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,
Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet
The others,...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 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.
To-day, 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...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 THE rock-like mud unfroze a little, and rills 
Ran and sparkled down each side of the road 
Under the catkins wagging in the hedge. 
But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun; 
Nor did I value that thin gliding beam 
More than a pretty February thing 
Till I came down to the old manor farm, 
And...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 NOW first, as I shut the door, 
I was alone 
In the new house; and the wind 
Began to moan. 

Old at once was the house, 
And I was old; 
My ears were teased with the dread 
Of what was foretold, 

Nights of storm, days of mist, without end; 
Sad days when the sun 
Shone in vain: old griefs...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 DOWNHILL I came, hungry, and yet not starved, 
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof 
Against the north wind; tired, yet so that rest 
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, 
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I. 
All of the night was quite barred out...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 RUNNING along a bank, a parapet 
That saves from the precipitous wood below 
The level road, there is a path. It serves 
Children for looking down the long smooth steep, 
Between the legs of beech and yew, to where 
A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women 
Content themselves with the road and what they see 
Over...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,
And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,
Rough, long grasses keep white with frost
At the hill-top by the finger-post;
The smoke of the traveller's-joy is puffed
Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.
I read the sign. Which way shall I go?
A voice says: "You would not have doubted so
At twenty." Another voice gentle with...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 There are so many things I have forgot, 
That once were much to me, or that were not, 
All lost, as is a childless woman's child 
And its child's children, in the undefiled 
Abyss of what can never be again. 
I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men 
That fought and lost or won in the old wars,...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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 WHEN first I came here I had hope, 
Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat 
My heart at the sight of the tall slope 
Or grass and yews, as if my feet 

Only by scaling its steps of chalk 
Would see something no other hill 
Ever disclosed. And now I walk 
Down it the last time. Never will...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Edward

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