Beauty
BEAUTY by EDWARD THOMAS
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---
'Here lies all that no one loved of him
And that loved no one.' Then in a trice that whim
Has wearied. But, though I am like a river
At fall of evening while it seems that never
Has the sun lighted it or warmed it, while
Cross breezes cut the surface to a file,
This heart, some fraction of me, happily
Floats through the window even now to a tree
Down in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale,
Not like a pewit that returns to wail
For something it has lost, but like a dove
That slants unswerving to its home and love.
There I find my rest, as through the dusk air
Flies what yet lives in me: Beauty is there.
| Title |
Beauty
|
|---|---|
| Author |
Thomas, Edward (1878-1917)
|
| Item date |
1979
|
| Content | |
| Copyright |
Copyright Edward Thomas, 1979, reproduced under licence from Faber and Faber Ltd.
|
| Digital repository | |
| Repository name |
ProQuest
|
| Repository address URL | |
| First line |
What does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease,
|
| Publication source |
Edward Thomas Collected Poems
|
| Publication editor |
Thomas, George
|
| Publishers |
Faber and Faber
|
| Publication place |
London
|
Collection
Citation
“Beauty,” by Thomas, Edward (1878-1917). Copyright Edward Thomas, 1979, reproduced under licence from Faber and Faber Ltd. via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed May 7, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/2857.
Permitted Use
This item is available for non-commercial educational use under the terms of the Jisc Model Licence. Further details available at: http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/permitteduse
