Edward Thomas, born in Lambeth, Surrey, in 1878, stands as a paramount poet of the World Wars, alongside figures like Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, and Rupert Brooke. He crafted over 150 poems, including notable pieces like The Owl‘, ‘The Dark Forest,’ ‘Haymaking,’ and ‘The Sign-Post.’ These works, still revered in schools, deeply reflect the sentiments of the First World War era.
Volunteering for WWI, Thomas’s dedication was profound, but he tragically fell in Arras, France, in 1917. Renowned for capturing the emotions of wartime, his legacy is immortalized in Westminster Abbey’s Poets Corner in London.
‘Adlestrop’ captures a fleeting moment of tranquility during an unexpected train stop. Through vivid imagery, Thomas paints a serene countryside scene, emphasizing the harmonious sounds of nature.
Yes, I remember Adlestrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
‘Lights Out’ is a haunting poem that uses an extended metaphor to compare the world of sleep to that of death.
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
‘The Sign-Post’ by Edward Thomas contains a discussion within a speaker’s mind about the progression of time and the nature of Heaven.
The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,
And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,
Rough, long grasses keep white with frost
At the hilltop by the finger-post;
‘May the Twenty-third,’ one of Thomas’ best-known poems describes a perfect day, a naturally beautiful day that is beyond compare. This particular “may” is the best he’s ever had.
There never was a finer day,
And never will be while May is May,
The third, and not the last of its kind;
But though fair and clear the two behind
In this mysterious and evocative poem, the speaker gives a memorable depiction of an abandoned chalk pit.
Is this the road that climbs above and bends
Round what was once a chalk-pit: now it is
By accident an amphitheatre.
Some ash trees standing ankle-deep in briar
‘As the Team’s Head Brass’ is a narrative poem written in 1916.
As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed an angle of the fallow, and
‘Haymaking’ is a beautiful pastoral poem and another of Thomas’ best-known works. It describes a landscape and its laborers who are impacted in different ways by the passage of time. The imagery is tranquil and pristine, as if it was just created by God.
After night’s thunder far away had rolled
The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,
And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,
Like the first gods before they made the world
‘Rain’ finds a soldier in World War One reckoning with the belief that isolation and death are each an inescapable part of human existence.
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
In ‘Beauty’ Thomas’ speaker asserts his definition of what beauty is and how he experiences it.
What does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease,
No man, woman, or child alive could please
Me now. And yet I almost dare to laugh
Because I sit and frame an epitaph-
In this poem, Thomas’ speaker describes a strange encounter between two men in a forest on a morning at the beginning of the year.
He was the one man I met up in the woods
That stormy New Year’s morning; and at first sight,
Fifty yards off, I could not tell how much
Of the strange tripod was a man. His body,
In ‘Aspens’ Thomas focuses on the theme of grief and what role poetry has to play in the preservation of memory.
All day and night, save winter, every weather,
Above the inn, the smithy, and the shop,
The aspens at the cross-roads talk together
Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.
‘Up in the Wind’ captures a public house history with the nature surrounding it, and how it impacts others.
I could wring the old thing's neck that put it there!
A public-house! it may be public for birds,
Squirrels and suchlike, ghosts of charcoal-burners
‘Home’ by Edward Thomas explores the serene harmony of home, where nature and humanity intertwine, evoking a sense of belonging.
Often I had gone this way before:
But now it seemed I never could be
And never had been anywhere else;
'Twas home; one nationality
‘Liberty’ explores the paradox of freedom in a desolate world, juxtaposing serene nature with deep philosophical musings.
The last light has gone out of the world, except
This moonlight lying on the grass like frost
Beyond the brink of the tall elm’s shadow.
It is as if everything else had slept
Thomas’s ‘Man and Dog’ weaves a tale of a man’s reflective journey with his dog, touching on work, war, and the solace of companionship.
‘Twill take some getting.’ ‘Sir, I think ’twill so.’
The old man stared up at the mistletoe
That hung too high in the poplar’s crest for plunder
Of any climber, though not for kissing under:
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