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| Messages 1 - 14 of total 14 in this topic |
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 30, 2014 - 10:32am PT
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Happy Birthday 100 a day late.
Amazing to think most of his work was done before he turned 22. Maybe that's the reason he checked out so early. So Romantic yet so good...
Written at the age of 19.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Oct 30, 2014 - 10:34am PT
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He would be happier if he were adding another candle to the cake.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 30, 2014 - 10:45am PT
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And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Oct 30, 2014 - 12:09pm PT
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The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
The force that drives the water through the rocks
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Two of the greatest lines in English free verse. Perfect syntax, tone and rhythm.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Oct 30, 2014 - 01:07pm PT
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At one time years ago I had a record of Richard Burton reciting the poet's verse. I can still hear it in my head.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Oct 30, 2014 - 01:31pm PT
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You sure that ain't Weege?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Oct 30, 2014 - 01:56pm PT
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Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 30, 2014 - 02:29pm PT
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Check out how Dylan Thomas could almost be a military leader rallying his troops against that seemingly unbeatable, implacable foe on the very field of battle. Rallying them before their charge to the very edge.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Oct 30, 2014 - 02:54pm PT
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I still have a copy of his
A Child's Christmas in Wales
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 30, 2014 - 03:38pm PT
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What is it about the Welsh and Irish that they produce such great lit. I think it's in the rhythm of words... I don't know but it's something special. Though written much earlier, there seems to be some kind of connection to Thomas in this passage by Joyce... one of my favorites.
"He was alone. He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the sea-harvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight and gayclad lightclad figures of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air.
A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.
She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither; and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.
 Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy.
He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him."
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Oct 30, 2014 - 04:17pm PT
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Paul, I believe that literary narrative is so woven into these cultures that they experience reality this way, as opposed to the bit-torrent manner we tend to do so across the pond.
JL
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 30, 2014 - 04:48pm PT
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Largo got slightly off-route by characterizing the narrative as "literary" when it would be more accurate to describe the Celtic tradition as oral, tribal, and essentially pre-literate---- in as much as trying to get at the root of why these cultures display a native facility for poetry and storytelling.
The spoken word is inclusive , mosaic, magical, circular, impressionistic, and invites the listener to participate. The literate word is exclusive,linear, repetitive, hierarchical , and high-definition.
The cultures under question , at least until perhaps contemporary times, drew upon the Celtic traditions of conveying cultural information through the spoken narrative---not the literary.
The Joyces and Dylan Thomases were a generation of Celts that were uniquely situated by history to be --as it were --the translators and recent designated craftsmen of this ancient tradition for the delight of the rest of mankind.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 30, 2014 - 05:05pm PT
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Yep. And as the Greeks began to build their Mediterranean empire they were forced to employ a standardized written language --- to meet mercantile and martial demands. To superimpose uniformity and thus streamline the transfer of information.
It was then that Cadmus sowed the magic teeth (alphabet) ---and up sprung soldiers.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 30, 2014 - 10:42pm PT
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It might also be the late date Celtic oral traditions found their way into the written word.
Also there's something to be said for the peripheral nature of original Celtic languages (in relation to a conquering "English") like those of Irish and Welsh culture that lent a sense of observation, a sense of the outsider, an observation of formal structure by Welsh and Irish authors, a compelling sense or interest in the rhythm of words as well as their meaning.
As in:
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Once read that Yeats was turned down for a teaching job because he misspelled the word "professor." Irony!
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