Poem On His Birthday Poem by Dylan Thomas

Poem On His Birthday

Rating: 3.4


In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
Herons spire and spear.

Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toesl towards the ambush of his wounds;
Herons, stepple stemmed, bless.

In the thistledown fall,
He sings towards anguish; finches fly
In the claw tracks of hawks
On a seizing sky; small fishes glide
Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils of his trade perceives
Herons walk in their shroud,

The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dyive in their turnturtle dust,
The rippled seals streak down
To kill and their own tide daubing blood
Slides good in the sleek mouth.

In a cavernous, swung
Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.
Thirty-five bells sing struck
On skull and scar where his lovews lie wrecked,
Steered by the falling stars.
And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage
Terror will rage apart
Before chains break to a hammer flame
And love unbolts the dark

And freely he goes lost
In the unknown, famous light of great
And fabulous, dear God.
Dark is a way and light is a place,
Heaven that never was
Nor will be ever is alwas true,
And, in that brambled void,
Plenty as blackberries in the woods
The dead grow for His joy.

There he might wander bare
With the spirits of the horseshoe bay
Or the stars' seashore dead,
Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales
And wishbones of wild geese,
With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,
And every soul His priest,
Gulled and chanter in youg Heaven's fold
Be at cloud quaking peace,

But dark is a long way.
He, on the earth of the night, alone
With all the living, prays,
Who knows the rocketing wind will blow
The bones out of the hills,
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
Rage shattered waters kick
Masts and fishes to the still quick stars,
Faithlessly unto Him

Who is the light of old
And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild
As horses in the foam:
Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
And druid herons' vows
The voyage to ruin I must run,
Dawn ships clouted aground,
Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,
Count my blessings aloud:

Four elements and five
Senses, and man a spirit in love
Thangling through this spun slime
To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come
And the lost, moonshine domes,
And the sea that hides his secret selves
Deep in its black, base bones,
Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,
And this last blessing most,

That the closer I move
To death, one man through his sundered hulks,
The louder the sun blooms
And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
And every wave of the way
And gale I tackle, the whole world then,
With more triumphant faith
That ever was since the world was said,
Spins its morning of praise,

I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thuderclap spring, and how
More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
As I sail out to die

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Brian Jani 26 April 2014

Awesome I like this poem, check mine out

6 16 Reply
David Stewart 21 July 2016

This has quite a few errors - don't take it to be accurately what Dylan wanted.

6 7 Reply
David Stewart 21 July 2016

This has quite a few errors - don't take it to be accurately what Dylan wrote.

2 7 Reply
Amrita 18 November 2020

Nice poem

1 1 Reply
Michael 23 September 2020

And his vorpal sword went snicker snack....

0 2 Reply
Adeeb Alfateh 18 June 2019

great great great write Who is the light of old And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild As horses in the foam: Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined And druid herons' vows The voyage to ruin I must run, Dawn ships clouted aground, Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue, Count my blessings aloud: great 10+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1 1 Reply
David Aragon 26 February 2018

A shame that this was not checked for spelling errors before posting. There are several, and they really detract from the sense of the poem.Check this version against one in a book of Dylan's poems to find the errors. A great poem!

4 2 Reply
Erik Jansen 26 January 2021

There are eight typo's and two missing 'points'.

0 1
Colin Cook 06 July 2018

I agree. I found 4 differences/mistakes when I compared it with Dylan himself reading.

0 1
EMMA-LOUISE G 15 January 2018

THIS WAS HELPFUL BECOUSE ITS MY UNCLES B-DAY AND HIS DEAD AND THIS JUST BROURT HAPPY MEMORYS IN MY TEARFUL EYES OF HIM THANK YOU IM SO GLAD I READ THIS THANKS REALLY IM SO HAPPY

2 2 Reply
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Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas

Swansea / Wales
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