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Edward Thomas, memory, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeEdward Thomas

Two Houses

BETWEEN a sunny bank and the sun The farmhouse smiles On the riverside plat: No other one So pleasant to look at And remember, for many miles, So velvet-hushed and cool under the warm tiles. Not far from the road it lies, yet caught Far out of reach Of the road's dust And the dusty thought Of passers-by, though each Stops, and turns, and must Look down at it like a wasp at the muslined peach. But another house stood there long before: And as if above graves
SadEdward Thomas

Celandine

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 all. Her nature and name Were like those flowers, and now immediately For a short swift eternity back she came, Beautiful, happy, simply as when she wore Her brightest bloom among the winter hues Of all the world; and I was happy too, Seeing the blossoms and the maiden who Had seen them with me Februarys before,
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

An Old Song

THE sun set, the wind fell, the sea Was like a mirror shaking: The one small wave that clapped the land A mile-long snake of foam was making Where tide had smoothed and wind had dried The vacant sand. A light divided the swollen clouds And lay most perfectly Like a straight narrow footbridge bright That crossed over the sea to me; And no one else in the whole world Saw that same sight. I walked elate, my bridge always Just one step from my feet: A robin sang, a shade in shade: And all I did was to repeat:
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

Rain

RAIN, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: But here I pray that none whom once I loved Is dying to-night or lying still awake Solitary, listening to the rain, Either in pain or thus in sympathy Helpless among the living and the dead, Like a cold water among broken reeds, Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff, Like me who have no love which this wild rain Has not dissolved except the love of death,
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

Home

NOT the end: but there's nothing more. Sweet Summer and Winter rude I have loved, and friendship and love, The crowd and solitude: But I know them: I weary not; But all that they mean I know. I would go back again home Now. Yet how should I go? This is my grief. That land, My home, I have never seen; No traveller tells of it, However far he has been. Afid could I discover it, I fear my happiness there, Or my pain, might be dreams of return Here, to these things that were.
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

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; 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 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."
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

The Thrush

WHEN Winter's ahead, What can you read in November That you read in April When Winter's dead? I hear the thrush, and I see Him alone at the end of the lane Near the bare poplar's tip, Singing continuously. Is it more that you know Than that, even as in April, So in November, Winter is gone that must go? Or is all your lore Not to call November November, And April April, And Winter Winter--no more?
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

The Ash Grove

HALF of the grove stood dead, and those that yet lived made Little more than the dead ones made of shade. If they led to a house, long before they had seen its fall: But they welcomed me; I was glad without cause and delayed. Scarce a hundred paces under the trees was the Interval-- Paces each sweeter than sweetest miles--but nothing at all, Not even the spirits of memory and fear with restless wing, Could climb down in to molest me over the wall That I passed through at either end without noticing.
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

Liberty

THE last light has gone out of the world, except This moonlight lying on the grass like frost Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow It is as if everything else had slept Many an age, unforgotten and lost The men that were, the things done, long ago, All I have thought; and but the moon and I Live yet and here stand idle over the grave Where all is buried. Both have liberty To dream what we could do if we were free To do some thing we had desired long, The moon and I. There's none less free than who Does nothing and has nothing else to do, Being free only for what is not to his mind, And nothing is to his mind. If every hour Like this one passing that I have spent among
ContemplativeEdward Thomas

When We Two Walked

WHEN we two walked in Lent We imagined that happiness Was something different And this was something less. But happy were we to hide Our happiness, not as they were Who acted in their pride Juno and Jupiter: For the Gods in their jealousy Murdered that wife and man, And we that were wise live free To recall our happiness then.

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