R. S. Thomas

thumb|I have been all men known to history, Wondering at the world and at time passing; I have seen evil, and the light blessing Innocent love under a spring sky. Ronald Stuart Thomas (29 March 1913 – 25 September 2000), published as R. S. Thomas, was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest who was noted for his Welsh nationalism, intense spirituality, and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales. Quotes thumb|"Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one." But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. thumb|You have to imagine a waiting that is not impatient because it is timeless. thumb|The thought comes of that other being who is awake, too, letting our prayers break on him, not like this for a few hours, but for days, years, for eternity. thumb|The world needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best are poetry and religion. thumb| I think that so much of our Christian beliefs … are an attempt to convey through language something which is unsayable. 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. The Penguin Book of Religious Verse (1963), p. 8 Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth. R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972) 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 : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972) On seeing his shadow fall on such ancient rocks, he had to question himself in a different context and ask the same old question as before, "Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one." But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. He would remember a verse from Pindar: "Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet." Neb [No-one] (1985) You have to imagine a waiting that is not impatient because it is timeless. "The Echoes Return Slow" in The Echoes Return Slow (1988) I lie in the lean hours awake listening to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic rising and falling, rising and falling wave on wave on the long shore by the village that is without light and companionless. And the thought comes of that other being who is awake, too, letting our prayers break on him, not like this for a few hours, but for days, years, for eternity. "The Other" in The Echoes Return Slow (1988) Let despair be known as my ebb-tide; but let prayer have its springs, too, brimming, disarming him; discovering somewhere among his fissures deposits of mercy where trust may take root and grow. "Tidal" in Mass for Hard Times (1992), p. 43 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. Selected Prose (1995), p. 131 I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox. "R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen." in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001) I wouldn't say that I'm an orthodox Christian at all and the longer we live in the twentieth century the more fantastic discoveries are made, the more we hear what the universe is like I find it very difficult to be a kind of orthodox believer in Jesus as my saviour and that sort of thing. I'm more interested in the extraordinary nature of God. If there is God, if there is deity, then He, even as the old hymn says, He moves in a mysterious way and I'm fascinated by that mystery and I've tried to write out of that experience of God, the fantastic side of God, the quarrel between the conception of God as a person, as having a human side, and the conception of God as being so extraordinary. … So these are still things that occupy me, and every now and again, if you're lucky, you're able to make a poem out of this conception of God … so I suppose I'm trying to appeal to people to open their eyes and their minds to the extraordinary nature of God. "R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001) True Christianity at its most profound is as good as you get. … I think I've been lucky in the period which I've lived through because obviously I would have been for the chop in earlier days. The Inquisition would have rooted me out; even in the 19th century I would probably have been had up by a Bishop and asked to change my views, or to keep them to myself etc.... I think that so much of our Christian beliefs … are an attempt to convey through language something which is unsayable. "R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001) Poetry For Supper (1958) thumb|Sunlight's a thing that needs a window Before it enter a dark room. Windows don't happen. thumb|God in his time Or out of time will correct this. thumb|A slow singer, but loading each phrase With history’s overtones, love, joy And grief learned by his dark tribe In other orchards and passed on Instinctively as they are now, But fresh always with new tears. "Verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty" "Poetry For Supper" "Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder." "Poetry For Supper" "Sunlight's a thing that needs a window Before it enter a dark room. Windows don't happen." So two old poets, Hunched at their beer in the low haze Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran Noisily by them, glib with prose. "Poetry For Supper" They left no books, Memorial to their lonely thought In grey parishes: rather they wrote On men's hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten. God in his time Or out of time will correct this. "The Country Clergy" It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes’ Ore were changed to a rare metal At one touch of that bright bill. "A Blackbird Singing" A slow singer, but loading each phrase With history’s overtones, love, joy And grief learned by his dark tribe In other orchards and passed on Instinctively as they are now, But fresh always with new tears. "A Blackbird Singing" Song at the Year's Turning (1955) Song at the Year's Turning : Poems, 1942-1954 thumb|He arose, pacing the floor Strewn with books, his mind big with the poem Soon to be born, his nerves tense to endure The long torture of delayed birth. thumb|King, beggar and fool, I have been all by turns, Knowing the body’s sweetness, the mind’s treason; Taliesin still, I show you a new world, risen, Stubborn with beauty, out of the heart’s need. thumb|You cannot find the centre Where we dance. He arose, pacing the floor Strewn with books, his mind big with the poem Soon to be born, his nerves tense to endure The long torture of delayed birth. "A Person From Porlock" Was he balked by silence? He kneeled long, And saw love in a dark crown Of thorns blazing, and a winter tree Golden with fruit of a man's body. "In a Country Church" I have been all men known to history, Wondering at the world and at time passing; I have seen evil, and the light blessing Innocent love under a spring sky. "Taliesin 1952" I have been Merlin wandering in the woods Of a far country, where the winds waken Unnatural voices, my mind broken By a sudden acquaintance with man’s rage. "Taliesin 1952" I have known exile and a wild passion Of longing changing to a cold ache. King, beggar and fool, I have been all by turns, Knowing the body’s sweetness, the mind’s treason; Taliesin still, I show you a new world, risen, Stubborn with beauty, out of the heart’s need. "Taliesin 1952" We live in our own world, A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees, The adult subterfuge. "Children’s Song" You cannot find the centre Where we dance, where we play, Where life is still asleep Under the closed flower, Under the smooth shell Of eggs in the cupped nest That mock the faded blue Of your remoter heaven. "Children’s Song" Tares (1961) thumb|All right, I was Welsh, does it matter? thumb|My word for heaven was not yours. The word for hell had a sharp edge Put on it by the hand of the wind Honing, honing with a shrill sound Day and night. thumb|History showed us He was too big to be nailed to the wall Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him Between the boards of a black book. thumb|I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow. thumb|I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see The footprints that led up to me. thumb|It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart. I must stay here with my hurt. All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls Of cloud for at least half the year. My word for heaven was not yours. The word for hell had a sharp edge Put on it by the hand of the wind Honing, honing with a shrill sound Day and night. Nothing that Glyn Dwr Knew was armour against the rain's Missiles. What was descent from him? "A Welsh Testament" Even God had a Welsh name: He spoke to him in the old language; He was to have a peculiar care For the Welsh people. History showed us He was too big to be nailed to the wall Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him Between the boards of a black book. "A Welsh Testament" Yet men sought us despite this. My high cheek-bones, my length of skull Drew them as to a rare portrait By a dead master. I saw them stare From their long cars, as I passed knee-deep In ewes and wethers. I saw them stand By the thorn hedges, watching me string The far flocks on a shrill whistle. And always there was their eyes; strong Pressure on me: You are Welsh, they said; Speak to us so; keep your fields free Of the smell of petrol, the loud roar Of hot tractors; we must have peace And quietness. "A Welsh Testament" Is a museum Peace? I asked. Am I the keeper Of the heart's relics, blowing the dust In my own eyes? I am a man; I never wanted the drab role Life assigned me, an actor playing To the past's audience upon a stage Of earth and stone; the absurd label Of birth, of race hanging askew About my shoulders. I was in prison Until you came; your voice was a key Turning in the enormous lock Of hopelessness. Did the door open To let me out or yourselves in? "A Welsh Testament" I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow. "Here" I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see The footprints that led up to me. "Here" There is blood in my veins That has run clear of the stain Contracted in so many loins. "Here" Why, then, are my hands red with the blood of so many dead? Is this where I was misled? "Here" Why are my hands this way That they will not do as i say? Does no God hear when I pray? "Here" I have nowhere to go. The swift satellites show The clock of my whole being is slow. "Here" It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart. I must stay here with my hurt. "Here" The Bread of Truth (1963) thumb|The deep spaces between stars, Fathomless as the cold shadow His mind cast. The deep spaces between stars, Fathomless as the cold shadow His mind cast. "Wallace Stevens", p. 25 Pietá (1966) She is young. Have I the right Even to name her? Child, It is not love I offer Your quick limbs, your eyes; Only the barren homage Of an old man whom time Crucifies. "The Dance" Laboratories of the Spirit (1975) thumb|It is alive. It is you, God. Looking out I can see no death. thumb|Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush... Deliver me from the long drought of the mind. Let leaves from the deciduous Cross fall on us, washing us clean, turning our autumn to gold by the affluence of their fountain. "Prayer", p. 10 It is alive. It is you, God. Looking out I can see no death. The earth moves, the sea moves, the wind goes on its exuberant journeys. Many creatures reflect you, the flowers your color, the tides the precision of your calculations. There is nothing too ample for you to overflow, nothing so small that your workmanship is not revealed. "Alive", p. 51 The darkness is the deepening shadow of your presence; the silence a process in the metabolism of the being of love. "Alive", p. 51 Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you. "The Bright Field", p. 60 Frequencies (1978) thumb|A power guided my hand. thumb|It was not I who lived, but life rather that lived me. Sometimes a strange light shines, purer than the moon, casting no shadow, that is the halo upon the bones of the pioneers who died for truth. "Groping", p. 12 There was a larger pattern we worked at: they on a big loom, I with a small needle. "In Context", p. 13 A power guided my hand. If an invisible company waited to see what I would do, I in my own way asked for direction, so we should journey together a little nearer the accomplishment of the design. "In Context" It was not I who lived, but life rather that lived me. "In Context" Is there a place here for the spirit? Is there time on this brief platform for anything other than mind's failure to explain itself? "Balance", p. 49 Between Here and Now (1981) thumb|Art is recuperation from time. I lie back convalescing upon the prospect of a harvest already at hand. thumb|Ah, what balance is needed at the edges of such an abyss. thumb|What to do but, like Michelangelo’s Adam, put my hand out into unknown space, hoping for the reciprocating touch? Art is recuperation from time. I lie back convalescing upon the prospect of a harvest already at hand. "Pissaro: Kitchen Garden, Trees in Bloom", p. 41 In the silence that is his chosen medium of communication and telling others about it in words. Is there no way not to be the sport of reason? "The New Mariner", p. 99 I had looked forward to old age as a time of quietness, a time to draw my horizons about me, to watch memories ripening in the sunlight of a walled garden. But there is the void over my head and the distance within that the tireless signals come from. And astronaut on impossible journeys to the far side of the self I return with messages I cannot decipher. "The New Mariner", p. 99 Ah, what balance is needed at the edges of such an abyss. I am left alone on the surface of a turning planet. What <p> to do but, like Michelangelo’s Adam, put my hand out into unknown space, hoping for the reciprocating touch? "Threshold", p. 110 Later Poems (1983) thumb|What was the shell doing, on the shore? An ear endlessly drinking? somewhere within sight of the tree of poetry that is eternity wearing the green leaves of time. "Prayer" What was the shell doing, on the shore? An ear endlessly drinking? What? Sound? Silence? Which came first? Listen. "Questions" No Truce with the Furies (1995) thumb|All art is anonymous. I turn now not to the Bible but to Wallace Stevens "Homage to Wallace Stevens" Blessings, Stevens; I stand with my back to grammar At an altar you never aspired to, celebrating the sacrament of the imagination whose high-priest notwithstanding you are. "Homage to Wallace Stevens" All art is anonymous. "Anybody's Alphabet" Quotes about Thomas thumb|In Christian terms, Thomas is not a poet of the transfiguration, of the resurrection, of human holiness … He is a poet of the cross, the unanswered prayer, the bleak trek through darkness. ~ A. E. Dyson thumb| Thomas offers a “sustained critique” not of Romanticism, but of a world that has “eroded away”— a world that has abandoned Romantic imagination. ~ Daniel Westover thumb|Thomas finds the God of nature elusive, but when He reveals Himself, he does so through the natural world. ~ Daniel Westover thumb|Thomas is the Solzhenitsyn of Wales; a writer of violent integrity, conscience-stricken at the state of his country, haunted still by the image of it he saw as a child. He was wonderful, very pure, very bitter but the bitterness was beautifully and very sparely rendered. He was completely authoritative, a very, very fine poet, completely off on his own, out of the loop but a real individual. It's not about being a major or minor poet. It's about getting a work absolutely right by your own standards and he did that wonderfully well. Al Alvarez, as quoted in "Wales loses its most sustained lyric voice" in The Guardian (27 September 2000) His example reduces most modern verse to footling whimsy. Kingsley Amis, in 1956, as quoted in A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English (1983) R. S. Thomas continues to articulate through his poetry questions that are inscribed on the heart of most Christian pilgrims in their search for meaning and truth. We search for God and feel Him near at hand, only then to blink and find Him gone. This poetry persuades us that we are not alone in this experience of faith — the poet has been there before us. Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales, as quoted in "RS Thomas centenary celebrated by Bangor Cathedral service" at BBC News (11 May 2013) I am not notably frivolous, but whenever I read R. S. Thomas’s poetry, or his biography, I cannot help but reflect that, like the majority of mankind, I have spent most of my life chasing false gods. Theodore Dalrymple, in "A Man Out of Time: A life of poet R. S. Thomas entertains and illumines" in City Journal (6 November 2006) Thomas is not a Wordsworthian poet, and his “nature” is not Wordsworth’s; it is history, rather than divinity, which he responds to most, in the bleak beauty of Wales. In Christian terms, Thomas is not a poet of the transfiguration, of the resurrection, of human holiness … He is a poet of the cross, the unanswered prayer, the bleak trek through darkness. A. E. Dyson, in Yeats, Eliot, and R.S. Thomas: Riding the Echo (1981), p. 296 Thomas has been famously plain-spoken — within the prevailing unclearess. Every poem represents an act of will with which he tries to beat a path, to habituate the microbe, to define its Christian antecedents. It is a painstaking effort: he must find a language that is exact, spare, solid, disciplined yet resonant. John Pikoulis and Martin Roberts, in "R.S. Thomas's Existential Agony" in Poetrywales, Vol. 29, No. 1 (July 1993) A recurrent theme in his poetry is that of God as a kind of joker — benign and malign by bewilderingly unpredictable turns. … Improving our understanding of temporal existence by distortion is exactly what, Thomas came to feel, the Surrealists did. That he saw their work as approximating that of the subtlest theologians is clear from the fine poem about Kierkegaard he included in his final volume, No Truce with the Furies, where Thomas's favorite theological thinker is characterized as "the first / of the Surrealists, picturing / our condition with the draughtsmanship / of a Dali". M. Wynn Thomas in "The fantastic side of God: R. S. Thomas and Jorge Luis Borges" in Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature (January 2008) RS Thomas is widely recognised as the major British religious poet of the later 20th Century. … His poems challenge, move and inspire readers throughout the world. Reverend Canon Robert Townsend, as quoted in "RS Thomas centenary celebrated by Bangor Cathedral service" at BBC News (11 May 2013) Thomas offers a “sustained critique” not of Romanticism, but of a world that has “eroded away”— a world that has abandoned Romantic imagination. … Thomas intends to resist the anti-romantic Modern spirit. Moreover, as he struggles with his personal faith, the poet’s Romantic imagination defines his attempts to commune with God. Daniel Westover, in "A God of Grass and Pen: R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination" in North American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003) In nature, it is divinity, rather than history, which Thomas responds to most. … Thomas finds the God of nature elusive, but when He reveals Himself, he does so through the natural world. God’s reflection, His shadow, and His echo exist in the Welsh hills. His influence there is both a presence and an absence (and, at times, an absence that is like a presence). Daniel Westover, in "A God of Grass and Pen: R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination" in North American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003) Thomas continues to believe that somewhere beyond God’s metaphoric manifestations, somewhere beyond the questions and sufferings, there is an actual God — inexplicably, even intentionally absent — but real, and one day He may permanently end "the long drought of the mind." Daniel Westover, in "A God of Grass and Pen: R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination" in North American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003) Another uncompromising poet whom Betjeman greatly admired was R. S. Thomas who has been described as the Solzhenitsyn of Wales "because he was a troubler of the Welsh conscience." A. N. Wilson in Betjeman: A Life (2006), p. 249 Thomas is the Solzhenitsyn of Wales; a writer of violent integrity, conscience-stricken at the state of his country, haunted still by the image of it he saw as a child. Award ceremony dedication (6 July 2000) published in "R.S. Thomas: A Tribute" in The Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorian (2000) External links Profile at Poetry Archive Profile at Poetry Foundation R. S. Thomas Study Centre Guardian obituary (27 September 2000) "R.S. Thomas's Existential Agony" by John Pikoulis and Martin Roberts "On not catching the poacher: R.S. Thomas" in Thumbscrew No. 4 (Spring 1996) "RS Thomas - Wales' s outspoken poet" at BBC News (6 September 2000) "The Country Clergy": a poem by R. S. Thomas Essays on Thomas at Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature "Alone Together" — a BBC Radio Play about his life and relationship with his wife, by Neil McKay (22 March 2009) Category:1913 births Category:2000 deaths Category:Absurdists Category:Anglicans from the United Kingdom Category:Clergy Category:Humanists Category:Pacifists Category:Mystics Category:Poets from Wales Category:People from Cardiff Category:Welsh nationalists