Later Poems, 1972-1982

by R.S. Thomas

Genres: Poetry

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 1983

About the author

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000) (otherwise stylised as R.S. Thomas) was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest who was noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales.

Reviews

[Raoul G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another collection of poems by R.S. Thomas. Here we have some longer poems with somewhat of a different style such as 'Perspectives' and 'Covenanters', as well as a group of poems about different artworks by artists such as Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso and Roland Penrose.
Other poems have the themes typically found in Thomas' poetry.
Here my favorite poem from this collection:

Gradual
I have come to the borders
of the understanding. Instruct
me, God, whether to press
onward or to draw back.

To say I am a child
is a pretence at humility
that is unworthy of me.
Rather am I at one with those

minds, all of whose instruments
are beside the point of
their sharpness. I need a technique
other than that of physics

for registering the ubiquity
of your presence. A myriad prayers
are addressed to you in a thousand
languages and you decode

them all. Liberty for you
is freedom from our too human
senses, yet we die
when they nod. Call your horizons

in. Suffer the domestication
for a moment of the ferocities
you inhabit, a garden for us to refine
our ignorance in under the boughs of love.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this! Particularly Labatories of the Spirit

THE KINGDOM

It's a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It's a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

[Vanjr · Rating 2 out of 5]

not a re-read

[Asma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not religious, and my background isn't Christianity. In order to get through the poetry of Ronald Stuart Thomas, you need to be aware of at least the principles and figures of Christianity. I had to look up more than a few poems/concepts, but it's worth it.

Song

I choose white, but with
red on it, like the snow
In winter with its few
Holly berries and the one

Robin, that is a fire
To warm by like Christ
Comes to us in his weakness,
But with a sharp song.

The Hand
It was a hand. God looked at it
and looked away. There was a coldness
about his heart, as though the hand
clasped it. As at the end
of a dark tunnel, he saw cities
the hand would build, engines
that it would raze them with. His sight
dimmed. Tempted to undo the joints
of the fingers, he picked it up.
But the hand wrestled with him. "Tell
me your name," it cried, "and I will write it
in bright gold. Are there not deeds
to be done, children to make, poems
to be written. The world
is without meaning, awaiting
my coming." But God, feeling the nails
in his side, the unnerving warmth
of the contact, fought on in
silence. This was the long war with himself
always foreseen, the question not
to be answered. What is the hand
for? The immaculate conception
preceding the delivery
of the first tool? “I let you go,”
he said, “but without blessing.
Messenger to the mixed things
Of your making, tell them I am.