The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem, so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.
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Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion"; the 'play for voices' Under Milk Wood; and stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his premature death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet". Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. An undistinguished pupil, he left school at 16 and became a journalist for a short time. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager; however, it was the publication in 1934 of "Light breaks where no sun shines" that caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara, whom he married in 1937. Their relationship was defined by alcoholism and was mutually destructive. In the early part of their marriage, Thomas and his family lived hand-to-mouth; they settled in the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne. Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficul
Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means.
Light breaks on secret lots, On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain; When logics die, The secret of the soil grows through the eye, And blood jumps in the sun; Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides; And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads, The things of light File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice. Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seas if I take to burn or return this world which is each man's work.
This is the world: the lying likeness of Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move Loving and being loth; The dream that kicks the buried from their sack And lets their trash be honoured as the quick. This is the world. Have faith
Which is the world? Of our two sleepings, which Shall fall awake when cures and their itch Raise up this red-eyed earth?
This world is half the devil's and my own, Daft with the drug that's smoking in a girl And curling round the bud that forks her eye.
These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.
Love drips & gathers, but the fallen blood Shall calm her sores..
Youth calls to age across the tired years: 'What have you found,' he cries, 'what have you sought?" 'What have you found,' age answers through his tears, 'What have you sought.