R. S. Thomas Quotes
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The silence holds with its gloved hand the wild hawk of the mind.
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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 .
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Art is recuperation
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The old men ask for more time; the young waste it. And the philosopher simply smiles, knowing there is none there.
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A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.
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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.
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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.
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In the silence
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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.
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The deep spaces between stars , Fathomless as the cold shadow His mind cast.
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I have nowhere to go. The swift satellites show The clock of my whole being is slow.
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Ah, what balance is needed at
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The darkness
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Poetry is that / which arrives at the intellect / by way of the heart.
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Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being... ultimate reality is what we call God.
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It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart . I must stay here with my hurt.
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I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.
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I had looked forward
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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.
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I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.
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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
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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.
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I am left alone on the surface
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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.