And this time, spreads the heavenly hedgerow rumour, it is the Earth. The Earth has killed itself. It is black, petrified, wizened, poisoned, burst; insanity has blown it rotten; and no creatures at all, joyful, despairing, cruel, kind, dumb, afire, loving, dull, shordy and brutishly hunt their days down like enemies on that corrupted face. And, one by one, those heavenly hedgerow-men who once were of the Earth call to one another, through the long night, Light and His tears falling, what they remember, what they sense in the submerged wilderness and on the exposed hair’s breadth of the mind, what they feel trembling on the nerves of a nerve, what they know in their Edenie hearts, of that self-called place. They remember places, fears, loves, exaltation, misery, animal joy, ignorance, and mysteries, all we know and do not know. The poem is made of these tellings. And the poem becomes, at last, an affirmation of the beautiful and terrible worth of the Earth. It grows into a praise of what is and what could be on this lump in the skies. It is a poem about happiness.”

Thomas continued to work on the long poem, but did not live to finish it. The fragments of “In Country Heaven” clearly form a part of the opening section; this is the title-poem, and, according to the design of the whole work, the beginning of it. Some lines had already been composed at the time of the broadcast: “Light and his tears glide down together … Bushes and owls blow out like candles.” But the assured tone of Thomas’s statements in his broadcast may be misleading. The idea of writing a long work of this kind did not begin with “In Country Sleep” (1947); it suggested itself gradually and was often abandoned. Thomas wished to share, with radio listeners or with friends, his enthusiasm for the planning of a long poem. No one now can tell how firmly he would have held to this purpose; no one can tell whether he privately believed his abilities to be of the kind to fulfill it successfully.

The version of “In Country Heaven” printed here is based on manuscripts in the Library of the University of Texas. Many other versions, of course, could be put together from the same material, and would be equally “authentic.” The greatest number of variants occur in the five lines beginning “Light and his tears glide down together,” where there are so many divergences that it is impossible to combine them in a readable text. Apart from this, the version printed here is solidly based down to the line “Pity for death.” Tentative or conjectural continuations of the poem after this line have been omitted.

DANIEL JONES, 1970

A CHRONOLOGY

1914	Dylan Mariais Thomas is born October 27 in Swansea, Wales, the second child of David John Thomas and Florence Hannah Williams.
1925	In September attends Swansea Grammar School where his father is senior English Master and where Thomas meets Daniel Jones for the first time.
1930	Starts his first “notebook poem” in April.
1931	Leaves Grammar School in August to be a reporter for the local South Wales Daily Post.
1933	In May, the London journal New English Weekly publishes “And death shall have no dominion,” and that summer Thomas visits London for the first time. Sunday Referee publishes “That sanity be kept” in September and Thomas begins his correspondence with Pamela Hansford Johnson.
1934	Wins the Book Prize of the “Poet’s Corner” sponsored by Sunday Referee. In October, he and Glyn Jones visit Caradoc Evans in Aberystwyth. Moves to London in November. His first book, 18 Poems (Sunday Referee), is published in December.
1935	Begins a correspondence with Vernon Watkins that leads to their friendship.
1936	Introduced to Caitlin Macnamara by Augustus John in April. In September, Twenty-five Poems (J. M. Dent) is published.
1937	The first of his one hundred forty-seven radio broadcasts airs on the BBC in April. Marries Caitlin Macnamara in Penzance on July 11.
1938	The Thomases move to Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
1939	Son Llewelyn Edouard Thomas is born January 30th in Hampshire. The Map of Love (Dent) is published in August. The World I Breathe (New Directions) is published in December.
1940	Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (Dent and New Directions) is published. Leaves Laugharne for the summer. Hired as a script writer by the Strand Film Company.
1942	Moves with Caidin and Llewelyn to live in London.
1943	New Poems (New Directions) is published in February. Daughter Aeronwy Bryn Thomas is born March 3rd in London.
1944	Family moves to New Quay, Cardiganshire, Wales in September.
1945	In the summer the family moves back to London.
1946	Deaths and Entrances (Dent) is published in February. Selected Writings (New Directions) is published in November.
1947	Visits Italy with his family from April through August. Family moves to South Leigh, Oxfordshire, England in September.
1948	Begins writing first of three feature films for Gainsborough Pictures.
1949	Visits Prague as a guest of the Czechoslovakian Government in March. Family moves into the Boat House in Laugharne in May. Also in May, receives first invitation from John Malcolm Brinnin to read in New York City. Son Colm Goran Hart Thomas is born on July 24 at Carmarthen.
1950	Goes on first reading tour of the United States from Febru ary 21 through May 31. Twenty-six poems (Dent and New Directions) is published
1951	Writes a film script in Iran for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company during January.
1952	Brings Caidin along on a second reading tour of the United States from January 20 through May 16. In Country Sleep (New Directions) is published in February. Makes first recording for Caedmon Records in New York City in February. Collected Poems 1934-1952 (Dent) is published in November. His father, D. J. Thomas, dies on December 16 at the age of 76.
1953	Collected Poems 1934–1953 (New Directions) is published in March. His sister, Nancy Mariais Thomas Summersby, dies on April 16 in Bombay, India. April 21 through June 3, travels on third reading tour of the United States. The Doctor and the Devils (Dent) is published in May. Under Milk Wood premieres May 14 at the Poetry Center of the YMHA, New York City, with Thomas directing and reading four of the parts. Also in May, meets with Igor Stravinsky in Boston to discuss plans for their collaboration on a never-to-be-realized opera. Fourth reading tour of the United States begins October 18. Collapses and falls into a coma at the Chelsea Hotel, New York City, on November 5. Dies at St. Vincent’s Hospital, New York City, on November 9. Buried in the graveyard of St. Martin’s Church, Laugharne, on November 24.
1954	Caitlin Thomas moves to Italy and London, living on and off in both places until she moves to Italy permanently in 1957.
1957	Caitlin’s Leftover Life to Kill is published in Great Britain (Putnam) and the United States (Little, Brown).
1958	Thomas’s mother Florence dies at Port Talbot, Wales in July at the age of 76.
1963	Caitlin’s Not Quite Posthumous Letter to My Daughter is published in Great Britain (Putnam) and the United States (Little, Brown).
1994	Caitlin Thomas dies in Catania, Sicily on July 31 at the age of 81.
2000	Llewelyn Thomas dies on November 13 at the age of 61.

INDEX OF Title AND First Lines

A grief ago 59

A grief ago, 59

A process in the weather of the heart 6

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London 106

A saint about to fall 100

A saint about to fall, 100

A stranger has come 113

A Winter’s Tale 125

After the funeral 92

After the funeral, mule praises, brays, 92

All all and all the dry worlds lever 35

All all and all the dry worlds lever, 35

Altarwise by owl-light 76

Altarwise by owl-light in the halfway-house 76

Always when he, in country heaven, 196

Among those Killed in the Dawn Raid was a Man Aged a Hundred 146

And death shall have no dominion 73

And death shall have no dominion. 73

Ballad of the Long-legged Bait 160

Because the pleasure-bird whistles 82

Because the pleasure-bird whisdes after the hot wires, 82

Before I knocked 7

Before I knocked and flesh let enter, 7

Ceremony After a Fire Raid 137

Deaths and Entrances 123

Do not go gentle into that good night 122

Do not go gende into that good night, 122

Do you not father me 50

Do you not father me, nor the erected arm 50

Ears in the turrets hear 63

Elegy 192

Especially when the October wind 16

Fern Hill 170

Find meat on bones 70

‘Find meat on bones that soon have none, 70

Foster the light 65

Foster the light nor veil the manshaped moon, 65

Friend by enemy I call you out. 112

From love’s first fever to her plague 21

From love’s first fever to her plague, from the soft second 21

Grief thief of time 72

Grief thief of time crawls off, 72

Half of the fellow father as he doubles 32

Here in this spring 49

Here in this spring, stars float along the void; 49

Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo’s month 54

Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo’s month, 54

Holy Spring 169

How shall my animal 96

How soon the servant sun 61

I dreamed my genesis 30

I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking 30

I fellowed sleep 28

I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, 28

I have longed to move away 69

I make this in a warring absence 83

I make this in a warring absence when 83

I see the boys of summer 1

I see the boys of summer in their ruin 1

I, in my intricate image 37

I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels, 37

If I were tickled by the rub of love 12

If I were tickled by the rub of love, 12

‘If my head hurt a hair’s foot’ 102

‘If my head hurt a hair’s foot 102

In Country Heaven 196

In Country Sleep 173

In my craft or sullen art 136

In the beginning 24

In the beginning was the three-pointed star, 24

In the mustardseed sun, 182

In the white giant’s thigh 189

Incarnate devil 43

Incarnate devil in a talking snake, 43

Into her lying down head 119

It is a winter’s tale 125

It is the sinners’ dust-tongued bell 88

It is the sinners’ dust-tongued bell claps me to churches 88

It was my thirtieth year to heaven 107

Lament 186

Lie still, sleep becalmed 147

Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound 147

Light breaks where no sun shines 26

Light breaks where no sun shines; 26

Love in the Asylum 113

My hero bares his nerves 10

My hero bares his nerves along my wrist 10

My world is pyramid 3 2

Myselves [/ The grievers/ Grieve] 137

Never and never, my girl riding far and near 173

Never until the mankind making 106

Not from this anger 95

Not from this anger, anticlimax after 95

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs 170

Now 56

Now [/ Say nay,/ Man dry man,] 56

O make me a mask 90

O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies 90

O [/Out of a bed of love] 169

On a Wedding Anniversary 132

On almost the incendiary eve 123

On no work of words 99

On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody 99

On the Marriage of a Virgin 135

Once below a time 141

Once below a time, 141

Once it was the colour of saying 94

Our eunuch dreams 14

Our eunuch dreams, all seedless in the light, 14

Out of the sighs 52

Out of the sighs a little comes, 52

Over Sir John’s hill 179

Over Sir John’s hill, 179

Poem in October 107

Poem on His birthday 182

Prologue xxi

Shall gods be said to thump the clouds 48

Should lanterns shine 68

Should lanterns shine, the holy face, 68

The bows glided down, and the coast 160

The conversation of prayers 105

The conversation of prayers about to be said 105

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower 9

The hand that signed the paper 67

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; 67

The hunchback in the park 117

The seed-at-zero 45

The seed-at-zero shall not storm 45

The sky is torn across 132

The spire cranes 91

The spire cranes. Its statue is an aviary. 91

The tombstone told when she died 98

The tombstone told when she died. 98

Then was my neophyte 74

Then was my neophyte, 74

There was a saviour 133

This bread I break 42

This bread I break was once the oat, 42

This day winding down now xxi

This side of the truth 110

This side of the truth, 110

Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry, 189

To Others than You 112

Today, this insect 44

Today, this insect, and the world I breathe, 44

Too proud to die; broken and blind he died 192

Twenty-four years 104

Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. 104

Unluckily for a death 114

Vision and Prayer 148

Waking alone in a multitude of loves when morning’s light 135

Was there a time 55

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles 55

We lying by seasand 87

We lying by seasand, watching yellow 87

When all my five and country senses see 86

When all my five and country senses see, 86

When I was a windy boy and a bit 186

When I woke 144

When I woke, the town spoke. 144

When once the twilight locks no longer 4

When the morning was waking over the war 146

When, like a running grave 18

When, like a running grave, time tracks you down, 18

Where once the waters of your face 11

Who [/ Are you/ Who is born] 148

Why east wind chills 58

Why east wind chills and south wind cools 58

BOOKS BY DYLAN THOMAS
FROM NEW DIRECTIONS

Adventures in the Skin Trade
and Other Stories

A Child’s Christmas in Wales,
illustrated by Ellen Raskin

The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas,
Original Edition

Collected Stories

The Doctor and the Devils
and Other Scripts

Eight Stories

On the Air with Dylan Thomas

The Poems of Dylan Thomas
with a CD of the poet reading his work

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

Quite Early One Mornig

Rebecca’s Daughters
and Other Film Scripts

Under Milk Wood, a Play for Voices

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

The following poems first appeared in the magazine Poetry: “We lying by seasand,” “When all my five and country senses see,” “O make me a mask,” “Not from this anger,” “The spire cranes,” “Her tombstone told when she died,” “Poem in October,” and “A Winter’s Tale.”

First published clothbound as The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas 1934 -1953 in 1953; revised edition, 1956; first published as New Directions Paperbook 316 in 1971. A revised edition with the title Dylan Thomas Selected Poems 1954-1952 was published in 2003. This reissue, retitled The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: Original Edition (with a new introduction by Paul Muldoon, ndpi 170), was published in 2010.

Frontispiece photograph by Marion Morehouse

Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thomas, Dylan, 1914-1953.
[Poems]
Collected poems / Dylan Thomas; introduction by Paul Muldoon
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.

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MY ACCOUNT

The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Read Online

A CHRONOLOGY

INDEX OF Title AND First Lines

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