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“I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.”

R.S. Thomas

"R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen." in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

“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.”

R.S. Thomas

"The Dance"
Pietá (1966)

“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.”

R.S. Thomas

"Tidal" in Mass for Hard Times (1992), p. 43

“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?”

R.S. Thomas

"A Welsh Testament"
Tares (1961)

“I am like a tree,
From my top boughs I can see
The footprints that led up to me.”

R.S. Thomas

"Here"
Tares (1961)

“somewhere within sight
of the tree of poetry
that is eternity wearing
the green leaves of time.”

R.S. Thomas

"Prayer"
Later Poems (1983)

“I am a man now.
Pass your hand over my brow.
You can feel the place where the brains grow.”

R.S. Thomas

"Here"
Tares (1961)

“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.”

R.S. Thomas

"Taliesin 1952"
Song at the Year's Turning (1955)

“"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.”

R.S. Thomas

"Poetry For Supper"
Poetry For Supper (1958)

“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.”

R.S. Thomas

"Taliesin 1952"
Song at the Year's Turning (1955)

“The deep spaces between stars,
Fathomless as the cold shadow
His mind cast.”

R.S. Thomas

"Wallace Stevens", p. 25
The Bread of Truth (1963)

“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?”

R.S. Thomas

"Balance", p. 49
Frequencies (1978)

“Art is recuperation
from time. I lie back
convalescing upon the prospect
of a harvest already at hand.”

R.S. Thomas

"Pissaro: Kitchen Garden, Trees in Bloom", p. 41
Between Here and Now (1981)

“What was the shell doing,
on the shore? An ear endlessly
drinking?
What? Sound? Silence?
Which came first?
Listen.”

R.S. Thomas

"Questions"
Later Poems (1983)

“The darkness
is the deepening shadow
of your presence; the silence a
process in the metabolism
of the being of love.”

R.S. Thomas

"Alive", p. 51
Laboratories of the Spirit (1975)

“It was not
I who lived, but life rather
that lived me.”

R.S. Thomas

"In Context"
Frequencies (1978)

“All art is anonymous.”

R.S. Thomas

"Anybody's Alphabet"
No Truce with the Furies (1995)