Ronald Stuart Thomas (29 March1913 –25 September2000), published asR. S. Thomas, was aWelsh poet andAnglican priest who was noted for his Welsh nationalism, intense spirituality, and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales.

• The nearest we approachGod…is ascreative beings. Thepoet, by echoing the primaryimagination, recreates. Through hiswork he forces those whoread him to do the same, thus bringing them...nearer to the actualbeing of God as displayed inaction.
  • The Penguin Book of Religious Verse (1963), p. 8

• Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of apoet's province … A poet must be able to claim …freedom to follow thevision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry isreligion, religion is poetry. The message of theNew Testament is poetry.Christ was a poet, the New Testament ismetaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preachingChristianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … Mywork as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginativetruth.
  • R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972)

• Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimatereality to ahuman being …ultimate reality is what we callGod.
  • R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972)

• On seeing hisshadow fall on such ancient rocks, he had to question himself in a different context and ask the same old question as before, "Who am I?", and the answer now camemore emphatically than ever before, "No-one."
  But a no-one with a crown oflight about his head. He would remember a verse fromPindar: "Man is adream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him fromGod, aglory comes to him and hislife is sweet."
  • Neb [No-one] (1985)

• You have toimagine
  a waiting that is not impatient
  because it istimeless.
  • "The Echoes Return Slow" inThe Echoes Return Slow (1988)

• I lie
  in the lean hours awake listening
  to the swell born somewhere in
  the Atlantic
  rising and falling, rising and
  falling
  wave on wave on the long shore
  by the village that is without
  light
  and companionless. Andthe
  thought comes
  of that other being who is
  awake, too,
  letting ourprayers break on him,
  not like this for a few hours,
  but for days, years, foreternity.
  • "The Other" inThe Echoes Return Slow (1988)

• Letdespair be known
  as my ebb-tide; but letprayer
  have its springs, too, brimming,
  disarming him; discovering somewhere
  among his fissures deposits ofmercy
  wheretrust may take root andgrow.
  • "Tidal" inMass for Hard Times (1992), p. 43

• Now the power of theimagination is aunifyingpower, hence theforce ofmetaphor; and thepoet is the supreme manipulator of metaphor... theworld needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best arepoetry andreligion.
  • Selected Prose (1995), p. 131

• I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many realpoets have ever been orthodox.
  • "R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen." inThe David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

• I wouldn't say that I'm an orthodoxChristian at all and the longer we live in the twentieth century the more fantastic discoveries are made, the more we hear what theuniverse is like I find it very difficult to be a kind of orthodox believer inJesus as my saviour and that sort of thing. I'm more interested in the extraordinarynature ofGod. If there is God, if there isdeity, then He, even as the old hymn says, He moves in amysteriousway and I'm fascinated by that mystery and I've tried to write out of thatexperience of God, the fantastic side of God, the quarrel between the conception of God as a person, as having a human side, and the conception of God as being so extraordinary. … So these are still things that occupy me, and every now and again, if you'relucky, you're able to make a poem out of this conception of God … so I suppose I'm trying to appeal to people to open theireyes and theirminds to the extraordinary nature of God.
  • "R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" inThe David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

• TrueChristianity at its most profound is asgood as you get. … I think I've been lucky in the period which I've lived through because obviously I would have been for the chop in earlier days. The Inquisition would have rooted me out; even in the 19th century I would probably have been had up by a Bishop and asked to change my views, or to keep them to myself etc....I think that so much of our Christianbeliefs … are an attempt to convey throughlanguage something which is unsayable.
  • "R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" inThe David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

• "Verse should be as natural
  As the small tuber that feeds on muck
  And grows slowly from obtuse soil
  To the white flower of immortalbeauty"
  • "Poetry For Supper"

• "Natural, hell! What was itChaucer
  Said once about the long toil
  that goes likeblood to thepoems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
  Limp as bindweed, if it break at all
  Life's iron crust
  Man, you must sweat
  And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build
  Your verse a ladder."
  • "Poetry For Supper"

• "Sunlight's a thing that needs a window
  Before it enter adark room.
  Windows don't happen."
  So two old poets,
  Hunched at their beer in the low haze
  Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran
  Noisily by them, glib with prose.
  • "Poetry For Supper"

• They left nobooks,
  Memorial to their lonely thought
  In grey parishes: rather they wrote
  On men's hearts and in the minds
  Of young children sublime words
  Too soon forgotten.God in his time
  Or out of time will correct this.
  • "The Country Clergy"

• It seems wrong that out of this bird,
  Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
  Places about it, there yet should come
  Such rich music, as though the notes’
  Ore were changed to a rare metal
  At one touch of that bright bill.
  • "A Blackbird Singing"

• A slowsinger, but loading each phrase
  Withhistory’s overtones,love,joy
  Andgrief learned by his dark tribe
  In other orchards and passed on
  Instinctively as they are now,
  But fresh always with newtears.
  • "A Blackbird Singing"

Song at the Year's Turning : Poems, 1942-1954

• He arose, pacing the floor
  Strewn withbooks, hismind big with thepoem
  Soon to be born, his nerves tense to endure
  The longtorture of delayedbirth.
  • "A Person From Porlock"

• Was he balked bysilence? He kneeled long,
  And sawlove in a dark crown
  Of thorns blazing, and a wintertree
  Golden with fruit of a man's body.
  • "In a Country Church"

• I have beenallmen known tohistory,
  Wondering at theworld and attime passing;
  I have seenevil, and thelightblessing
  Innocentlove under aspringsky.
  • "Taliesin 1952"

• I have beenMerlin wandering in the woods
  Of a far country, where thewinds waken
  Unnaturalvoices, my mind broken
  By a sudden acquaintance with man’s rage.
  • "Taliesin 1952"

• I have knownexile and a wildpassion
  Of longing changing to a cold ache.
  King, beggar andfool, I have been all by turns,
  Knowing the body’s sweetness, themind’streason;
  Taliesin still, I show you a newworld, risen,
  Stubborn withbeauty, out of theheart’sneed.
  • "Taliesin 1952"

• We live in our ownworld,
  A world that is too small
  For you to stoop and enter
  Even on hands and knees,
  The adult subterfuge.
  • "Children’s Song"

• You cannot find the centre
  Where wedance, where we play,
  Wherelife is still asleep
  Under the closedflower,
  Under the smooth shell
  Of eggs in the cupped nest
  That mock the faded blue
  Of your remoterheaven.
  • "Children’s Song"

• All right, I wasWelsh. Does it matter?
  I spoke a tongue that was passed on
  To me in the place I happened to be,
  A place huddled between grey walls
  Of cloud for at least half the year.
  Myword forheaven was not yours.
  The word forhell had a sharp edge
  Put on it by thehand of thewind
  Honing, honing with a shrill sound
  Day and night. Nothing thatGlyn Dwr
  Knew was armour against the rain's
  Missiles. What was descent from him?
  • "A Welsh Testament"

• EvenGod had a Welshname:
  He spoke to him in the old language;
  He was to have a peculiar care
  For the Welsh people.History showed us
  He was too big to be nailed to the wall
  Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him
  Between the boards of a blackbook.
  • "A Welsh Testament"

• Yet men sought us despite this.
  My high cheek-bones, my length of skull
  Drew them as to a rare portrait
  By a dead master. I saw them stare
  From their long cars, as I passed knee-deep
  In ewes and wethers. I saw them stand
  By the thorn hedges, watching me string
  The far flocks on a shrill whistle.
  And always there was their eyes; strong
  Pressure on me: You are Welsh, they said;
  Speak to us so; keep your fields free
  Of the smell of petrol, the loud roar
  Of hot tractors; we must havepeace
  And quietness.
  • "A Welsh Testament"

• Is a museum
  Peace? I asked. Am I the keeper
  Of the heart's relics, blowing the dust
  In my own eyes? I am a man;
  I never wanted the drab role
  Life assigned me, an actor playing
  To the past's audience upon a stage
  Of earth and stone; the absurd label
  Of birth, of race hanging askew
  About my shoulders. I was in prison
  Until you came; your voice was a key
  Turning in the enormous lock
  Of hopelessness. Did the door open
  To let me out or yourselves in?
  • "A Welsh Testament"

• I am aman now.
  Pass your hand over my brow.
  You can feel the place where thebrains grow.
  • "Here"

• I am like atree,
  From my top boughs I can see
  The footprints that led up tome.
  • "Here"

• There isblood in my veins
  That has run clear of the stain
  Contracted in so many loins.
  • "Here"

• Why, then, are my hands red
  with the blood of so many dead?
  Is this where I was misled?
  • "Here"

• Why are my hands this way
  That they will not do as i say?
  Does noGod hear when I pray?
  • "Here"

• I have nowhere to go.
  The swift satellites show
  The clock of my whole being is slow.
  • "Here"

• It is too late to start
  For destinations not of theheart.
  I must stay here with my hurt.
  • "Here"

• The deep spaces betweenstars,
  Fathomless as the coldshadow
  Hismind cast.
  • "Wallace Stevens", p. 25

• She is young. Have I the right
  Even to name her? Child,
  It is notlove I offer
  Your quick limbs, your eyes;
  Only the barren homage
  Of an old man whomtime
  Crucifies.
  • "The Dance"

• Deliver me from the long drought
  of themind. Let leaves
  from the deciduous Cross
  fall on us, washing
  us clean, turning our autumn
  to gold by the affluence of their fountain.
  • "Prayer", p. 10

• It isalive. It is you,
  God. Looking out I can see
  nodeath. Theearth moves, the
  sea moves, thewind goes
  on its exuberant
  journeys. Many creatures
  reflect you, theflowers
  your color, the tides the precision
  of your calculations. There
  is nothing too ample
  for you to overflow, nothing
  so small that your workmanship
  is not revealed.
  • "Alive", p. 51

• Thedarkness
  is the deepeningshadow
  of your presence; thesilence a
  process in the metabolism
  of the being oflove.
  • "Alive", p. 51

• Life is not hurrying
  on to a recedingfuture, nor hankering after
  an imaginedpast. It is the turning
  aside likeMoses to themiracle
  of the lit bush, to a brightness
  that seemed as transitory as your youth
  once, but is theeternity that awaits you.
  • "The Bright Field", p. 60

• Sometimes a strangelight
  shines, purer than themoon,
  casting noshadow, that is
  the halo upon the bones
  of the pioneers who died fortruth.
  • "Groping", p. 12

• There was a larger pattern
  we worked at: they on a big
  loom, I with a small needle.
  • "In Context", p. 13

• Apower guided myhand. If an invisible company
  waited to see what I would do,
  I in my own way asked for
  direction, so we should journey together
  a little nearer the accomplishment
  of thedesign.
  • "In Context"

• It was not
  I who lived, butlife rather
  that lived me.
  • "In Context"

• Is there a place
  here for thespirit? Is theretime
  on this brief platform for anything
  other thanmind's failure to explain itself?
  • "Balance", p. 49

• Art is recuperation
  from time. I lie back
  convalescing upon the prospect
  of aharvest already at hand.
  • "Pissaro: Kitchen Garden, Trees in Bloom", p. 41

• In thesilence
  that is his chosen medium
  of communication and telling
  others about it
  in words. Is there no way
  not to be the sport
  ofreason?
  • "The New Mariner", p. 99

• I had looked forward
  to old age as a time
  of quietness, a time to draw
  my horizons about me,
  to watch memories ripening
  in the sunlight of a walled garden.
  But there is the void
  over my head and the distance
  within that the tireless signals
  come from. And astronaut
  on impossible journeys
  to the far side of the self
  I return with messages
  I cannot decipher.
  • "The New Mariner", p. 99

• Ah, what balance is needed at
  the edges of such an abyss.
  I am left alone on the surface
  of a turning planet. What

  to do but, likeMichelangelo’s
  Adam, put myhand
  out into unknown space,
  hoping for the reciprocating touch?

  • "Threshold", p. 110

• somewhere within sight
  of thetree ofpoetry
  that iseternity wearing
  the green leaves oftime.
  • "Prayer"

• What was the shell doing,
  on the shore? An ear endlessly
  drinking?
  What? Sound? Silence?
  Which came first?
  Listen.
  • "Questions"

• I turn now
  not tothe Bible
  but toWallace Stevens
  • "Homage to Wallace Stevens"

• Blessings, Stevens;
  I stand with my back to grammar
  At an altar you never aspired
  to, celebrating the sacrament
  of theimagination whose high-priest
  notwithstanding you are.
  • "Homage to Wallace Stevens"

• Allart isanonymous.
  • "Anybody's Alphabet"

• He was wonderful, verypure, very bitter but the bitterness was beautifully and very sparely rendered. He was completely authoritative, a very, very fine poet, completely off on his own, out of the loop but a realindividual. It's not about being a major or minor poet. It's about getting awork absolutely right by your own standards and he did that wonderfully well.
  • Al Alvarez, as quoted in"Wales loses its most sustained lyric voice" inThe Guardian (27 September 2000)

• Hisexample reduces most modern verse to footling whimsy.
  • Kingsley Amis, in 1956, as quoted inA Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English (1983)

• R. S. Thomas continues to articulate through hispoetry questions that are inscribed on theheart of most Christian pilgrims in their search formeaning andtruth. We search for God and feel Him near at hand, only then to blink and find Him gone. This poetry persuades us that we are not alone in this experience of faith — the poet has been there before us.
  • Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales, as quoted in"RS Thomas centenary celebrated by Bangor Cathedral service" atBBC News (11 May 2013)

• I am not notably frivolous, but whenever I read R. S. Thomas’spoetry, or hisbiography, I cannot help but reflect that, like the majority ofmankind, I have spent most of my life chasing falsegods.
  • Theodore Dalrymple, in"A Man Out of Time : A life of poet R. S. Thomas entertains and illumines" inCity Journal (6 November 2006)

• Thomas is not a Wordsworthian poet, and his “nature” is notWordsworth’s; it ishistory, rather thandivinity, which he responds to most, in the bleak beauty of Wales. In Christian terms, Thomas is not a poet of the transfiguration, of theresurrection, ofhumanholiness …He is a poet of the cross, the unansweredprayer, the bleak trek throughdarkness.
  • A. E. Dyson, inYeats, Eliot, and R.S. Thomas : Riding the Echo (1981), p. 296

• Thomas has been famously plain-spoken — within the prevailing unclearess. Every poem represents an act ofwill with which he tries to beat a path, to habituate the microbe, to define its Christian antecedents. It is a painstaking effort: he must find alanguage that is exact, spare, solid, disciplined yet resonant.
  • John Pikoulis and Martin Roberts, in"R.S. Thomas's Existential Agony" inPoetrywales, Vol. 29, No. 1 (July 1993)

• A recurrent theme in his poetry is that ofGod as a kind ofjoker — benign and malign by bewilderingly unpredictable turns. … Improving our understanding of temporal existence by distortion is exactly what, Thomas came to feel, the Surrealists did. That he saw theirwork as approximating that of the subtlest theologians is clear from the fine poem aboutKierkegaard he included in his final volume,No Truce with the Furies, whereThomas's favorite theological thinker is characterized as "the first / of the Surrealists, picturing / our condition with the draughtsmanship / of aDali".
  • M. Wynn Thomas in "The fantastic side of God : R. S. Thomas and Jorge Luis Borges" inRenascence: Essays on Values in Literature (January 2008)

• RS Thomas is widely recognised as the major British religious poet of the later 20th Century. … His poems challenge, move and inspire readers throughout the world.
  • Reverend Canon Robert Townsend, as quoted in"RS Thomas centenary celebrated by Bangor Cathedral service" atBBC News (11 May 2013)

• Thomas offers a “sustained critique” not ofRomanticism, but of aworld that has “eroded away”— a world that has abandoned Romanticimagination. … Thomas intends to resist the anti-romantic Modern spirit. Moreover, as he struggles with his personalfaith, the poet’s Romantic imagination defines his attempts to commune withGod.
  • Daniel Westover, in"A God of Grass and Pen : R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination" inNorth American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003)

• Innature, it is divinity, rather thanhistory, which Thomas responds to most. …Thomas finds theGod of nature elusive, but when He reveals Himself, he does so through the naturalworld. God’s reflection, His shadow, and His echo exist in the Welsh hills. His influence there is both a presence and an absence (and, at times, an absence that is like a presence).
  • Daniel Westover, in "A God of Grass and Pen : R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination" inNorth American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003)

• Thomas continues tobelieve that somewhere beyondGod’s metaphoric manifestations, somewhere beyond the questions and sufferings, there is an actualGod — inexplicably, even intentionally absent — butreal, and one day He may permanently end "the long drought of themind."
  • Daniel Westover, in "A God of Grass and Pen : R.S. Thomas and the Romantic Imagination" inNorth American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (Summer 2003)

• Another uncompromising poet whomBetjeman greatly admired was R. S. Thomas who has been described as theSolzhenitsyn of Wales "because he was a troubler of the Welshconscience."
  • A. N. Wilson in Betjeman : A Life (2006), p. 249

• Thomas is theSolzhenitsyn of Wales; a writer of violentintegrity, conscience-stricken at the state of his country, haunted still by the image of it he saw as a child.
  • Award ceremony dedication (6 July 2000) published in "R.S. Thomas : A Tribute" inThe Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorian (2000)

Wikipedia has an article about:

R. S. Thomas

• Profile at Poetry Archive
• Profile at Poetry Foundation
• R. S. Thomas Study Centre
• Guardian obituary (27 September 2000)
• "R.S. Thomas's Existential Agony" by John Pikoulis and Martin Roberts
• "On not catching the poacher : R.S. Thomas" inThumbscrew No. 4 (Spring 1996)
• "RS Thomas - Wales' s outspoken poet" atBBC News (6 September 2000)
• "The Country Clergy": a poem by R. S. Thomas
• Essays on Thomas atRenascence: Essays on Values in Literature
• "Alone Together" — a BBC Radio Play about his life and relationship with his wife, by Neil McKay (22 March 2009)

• 1913 births
• 2000 deaths
• Absurdists
• Anglicans from the United Kingdom
• Clergy
• Humanists
• Pacifists
• Mystics
• Poets from Wales
• People from Cardiff
• Welsh nationalists