R. S. Thomas

The furies are at home

— R. S. Thomas

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.

— R. S. Thomas

Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being … ultimate reality is what we call God.

— R. S. Thomas

You have to imagine because it is timeless.

— R. S. Thomas

I lie but for days, years, for eternity.

— R. S. Thomas

Let despair be known where trust may take root and grow.

— R. S. Thomas

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.

— R. S. Thomas

I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.

— R. S. Thomas

Verse should be as natural To the white flower of immortal beauty

— R. S. Thomas

Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Your verse a ladder.

— R. S. Thomas

"Sunlight's a thing that needs a window Noisily by them, glib with prose.

— R. S. Thomas

They left no books, Or out of time will correct this.

— R. S. Thomas

It seems wrong that out of this bird, At one touch of that bright bill.

— R. S. Thomas

A slow singer, but loading each phrase But fresh always with new tears.

— R. S. Thomas

He arose, pacing the floor The long torture of delayed birth.

— R. S. Thomas

Was he balked by silence? He kneeled long, Golden with fruit of a man's body.

— R. S. Thomas

I have been all men known to history, Innocent love under a spring sky.

— R. S. Thomas

I have been Merlin wandering in the woods By a sudden acquaintance with man’s rage.

— R. S. Thomas

I have known exile and a wild passion Stubborn with beauty, out of the heart’s need.

— R. S. Thomas

We live in our own world, The adult subterfuge.

— R. S. Thomas

You cannot find the centre Of your remoter heaven.

— R. S. Thomas

Even God had a Welsh name: Between the boards of a black book.

— R. S. Thomas

I am a man now. You can feel the place where the brains grow.

— R. S. Thomas

I am like a tree, The footprints that led up to me.

— R. S. Thomas

There is blood in my veins Contracted in so many loins.

— R. S. Thomas

Why, then, are my hands red Is this where I was misled?

— R. S. Thomas

Why are my hands this way Does no God hear when I pray?

— R. S. Thomas

I have nowhere to go. The clock of my whole being is slow.

— R. S. Thomas

It is too late to start I must stay here with my hurt.

— R. S. Thomas

The deep spaces between stars, His mind cast.

— R. S. Thomas

She is young. Have I the right Crucifies.

— R. S. Thomas

Deliver me from the long drought to gold by the affluence of their fountain.

— R. S. Thomas

It is alive. It is you, is not revealed.

— R. S. Thomas

The darkness of the being of love.

— R. S. Thomas

Life is not hurrying once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

— R. S. Thomas

Sometimes a strange light of the pioneers who died for truth.

— R. S. Thomas

There was a larger pattern loom, I with a small needle.

— R. S. Thomas

A power guided my hand. If an invisible company of the design.

— R. S. Thomas

It was not that lived me.

— R. S. Thomas

Is there a place other than mind's failure to explain itself?

— R. S. Thomas

Art is recuperation of a harvest already at hand.

— R. S. Thomas

In the silence of reason?

— R. S. Thomas

I had looked forward I cannot decipher.

— R. S. Thomas

Ah, what balance is needed at hoping for the reciprocating touch?

— R. S. Thomas

somewhere within sight the green leaves of time.

— R. S. Thomas

What was the shell doing, Listen.

— R. S. Thomas

I turn now but to Wallace Stevens

— R. S. Thomas

Blessings, Stevens; notwithstanding you are.

— R. S. Thomas

All art is anonymous.

— R. S. Thomas