Date: Fri Jun 25, 1999 10:38am
Subject: Feel the Force, Luke...
Lest we think that the holistic vision, the concept of the interconnectivity of all things, and theories of resonance are something terribly terribly new, have a gander at this, which I've always felt to be one of the finest poems of the 20th (or any) century; not cheerful, true, but sublimely human.... Herein also are (conscious?) allusions to some of the principles of sympathetic magic ("The hand that whirls", etc...)
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.
-Dylan Thomas, 1934-
No comments:
Post a Comment