Dylan Thomas's Collected Poems (1934-1952) gambol and frisk across the tongue and imagination like those of few other poets. His finely crafted phrases, his musicality and his lilting language are nicely captured by the first two stanzas of his poem, Fern Hill :
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honored among wagons I was prince of the apple towns,
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams...
This collection of his poems contains only those that he wished to be preserved and should be owned by anyone who loves beautifully crafted language.
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