That sanity be kept
That sanity be kept
That sanity be kept I sit at open windows,
Regard the sky, make unobtrusive comment on the moon,
Sit at open windows in my shirt,
And let the traffic pass, the signals shine,
The engines run, the brass bands keep in tune
For sanity must be preserved.
Thinking of death, I sit and watch the park
Where children play in all their innocence,
And matrons on the littered grass
Absorb the daily sun.
The sweet suburban music from a hundred lawns
Comes softly to my ears. The English mowers mow and mow.
I mark the couples walking arm in arm,
Observe their smiles,
Sweet invitations and inventions,
See them lend love illustration
By gesture and grimace.
I watch them curiously, detect beneath the laughs
What stands for grief, a vague bewilderment
At things not turning right.
I sit at open windows in my shirt,
Observe, like some Jehovah of the west
What passes by, and sanity be kept.
The force that through the green fuse
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 rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain springs 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 Marlais Thomas
(1914-1953)
Born in Swansea, Wales, he was famous for his heavy drinking and innovative and new imagery. Most talked about poems: And Death shall have no dominon and Do not go gentle into the goodnight; which keep on resurfacing in different anthologies. Born 27th october 1914 , Swansea, Wales. Died Greenwich village , Manhattan, New york city on the 9’th of nov(aged 39). We can clearly see the influences of D.H.Lawrence, Welsh mythology and James Joyes in his creative thought process and he influenced John Lennon and Bob Dylon.Dylan Thomas died in Manhatten, Newyork city; aged 39. Literary movement Romanticism and Modernism.