Early one morning in May I set out,
And nobody I knew was about.
I’m bound away for ever,
Away somewhere, away for ever.
There was no wind to trouble the weathercocks.
I had burnt my letters and darned my socks.
No one knew I was going away,
I thought myself I should come back some day.
I heard the brook through the town gardens run.
O sweet was the mud turned to dust by the sun.
A gate banged in a fence and banged in my head.
‘A fine morning, sir’, a shepherd said.
I could not return from my liberty,
To my youth and my love and my misery.
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet,
The only sweet thing that is not also fleet.
I’m bound away for ever,
Away somehwere, away for ever.
__________
“Early One Morning” by Edward Thomas, which can be found in his Annotated Collected Poems.
“How a poet convinces you he will not tell you anything he does not think or feel, since you have only his word for it, is hard to discover, but Edward Thomas is one of those who do it.”
Kingsley Amis, An Amis Anthology: A Personal Choice of English Verse
john said:
Edward Thomas was a voice cut far too early by the butchery of WW1. This is not, however, one of his best poems, although ‘All Things British Countryside’ is what he is known for. “And You, Helen” I think is a far better poem.
jrbenjamin said:
I agree that this is not one of his best works, and I actually like it less and less the more I read it. The cadences aren’t that smooth, and some of the rhymes are lazy (“fleet” and “sweet” at the end is ridiculous). Anyways, I’ve read “And You, Helen,” and it didn’t hit me too hard. I really like “Gone, Gone Again”. My criteria for poetry that I like — as you may be able to tell from what I post — is if the poem isn’t too long, the rhymes are subtle and do not overtake the substance of the work, and the verse follows a formal structure. Imagery is also important, but I don’t think about that in advance.
Anyways, I’ll check out “All Things…” when I get the chance.
Thanks for reading and commenting…
jrbenjamin said:
One more crucial aspect of poetry that I forgot to mention is how the author communicates his perception of himself and his work. I like poems that try to fit unostentatiously within the flow of what you could call “everyday life”. Sometimes, more complex, self-consciously-modern poets, like Auden and Wallace Stevens, resonate with me, but I’d almost always rather read Larkin or Thomas Hardy.