Vision And Prayer
By Dylan Thomas
i
W h o
A r e y o u
Who is born
In the next room
So loud to my own
That I can hear the womb
Opening and the dark run
Over the ghost and the dropped son
Behind the wall thin as a wren’s bone ?
In the birth bloody room unknown
To the burn and turn of time
And the heart print of man
Bo w s n o b a p t i s m
Bu t d a r k a l o n e
Blessing on
The wild
Child.
I
Must lie
S t i l l as s t o n e
By the wren bone
Wall hearing the moan
Of the mother hidden
And the shadowed head of pain
Casting to-morrow like a thorn
And the midwives of miracle sing
Until the turbulent new born
Burns me his name and his flame
And the winged wall is torn
By his torrid crown
And the dark thrown
From his loin
T o b r i g h t
L i g h t.
W h e n
T h e w r e n
Bone writhes down
And the first dawn
Furied by his stream
Swarms on the kingdom come
Of the dazzler of heaven
And the splashed mothering maiden
Who bore him with a bonfire in
His mouth and rocked him like a storm
I shall run lost in sudden
Terror and shining from
The once hooded room
C r y i n g i n v a i n
I n the c a u l d r o n
O f h i s
K i s s
I n
T h e s p i n
O f t h e s u n
I n t h e s p u m i n g
Cyclone of his wing
For I was lost who am
Crying at the man drenched throne
In the first fury of his stream
A n d t h e l i g h t n i n g s o f a d o r a t i o n
Back to black silence melt and mourn
For I was lost who have come
To dumbfounding haven
And the finding one
And the high noon
Of his wound
Blinds my
C r y.
T h e r e
Crouched bare
I n t h e s h r i n e
O f h i s b l a z i n g
B r e a s t I s h a l l w a k e n
To the judge blown bedlam
Of the uncaged sea bottom
The cloud climb of the exhaling tomb
And the bidden dust upsailing
With his flame in every grain.
O spiral of ascension
From the vultured urn
Of the morning
Of man when
The land
And
T h e
B o r n s e a
Praised the sun
T h e fi n d i n g o n e
A n d u p r i g h t A d a m
S a n g u p o n o r i g i n !
O the wings of the children!
The woundward flight of the ancient
Young from the canyons of oblivion!
The sky stride of the always slain
In battle! the happening
Of saints to their vision!
The world winding home!
And the whole pain
F l o w s o p e n
A n d I
D i e .
ii
In the name of the lost who glory in
The swinish plains of carrion
U n d e r t h e b u r i a l s o n g
Of the birds of burden
Heavy with the drowned
And the green dust
A n d b e a r i n g
The ghost
F r o m
The ground
L i k e p o l l e n
On the black plume
And the beak of slime
I pray though I belong
Not wholly to that lamenting
Brethren for joy has moved within
The inmost marrow of my heart bone
That he who learns now the sun and moon
Of his mother’s milk may return
Before the lips blaze and bloom
To the birth bloody room
Behind the wall’s wren
Bone and be dumb
And the womb
T h a t b o r e
F o r
A l l m e n
T h e a d o r e d
I n f a n t l i g h t o r
The dazzling prison
Yawn to his upcoming.
In the name of the wanton
Lost on the unchristened mountain
In the centre of dark I pray him
That he let the dead lie though they moan
For his briared hands to hoist them
To the shrine of his world’s wound
And the blood drop's garden
E n d u r e t h e s t o n e
Blind host to sleep
I n t h e d a r k
A n d d e e p
R o c k
A w a k e
No heart bone
But let it break
On the mountain crown
U n b i d d e n b y t h e s u n
And the beating dust be blown
Down to the river rooting plain
U n d e r t h e n i g h t f o r e v e r f a l l i n g.
Forever falling night is a known
Star and country to the legion
Of sleepers whose tongue I toll
T o m o u r n h i s d e l u g i n g
Light through sea and soil
And we have come
T o k n o w a l l
P l a c e s
W a y s
M a z e s
P a s s a g e s
Quarters and graves
O f t h e e n d l e s s f a l l.
N o w c o m m o n l a z a r u s
Of the charting sleepers prays
N e v e r t o a w a k e a n d a r i s e
For the country of death is the heart’s size
And the star of the lost the shape of the eyes.
In the name of the fatherless
In the name of the unborn
A n d t h e u n d e s i r e r s
Of midwiving morning’s
Hands or instruments
O in the name
Of no one
Now or
N o
O n e t o
B e I p r a y
May the crimson
Sun spin a grave grey
And the colour of clay
Stream upon his martyrdom
I n t h e i n t e r p r e t e d e v e n i n g
And the known dark of the earth amen.
I turn the corner of prayer and burn
I n a b l e s s i n g o f t h e s u d d e n
Sun. In the name of the damned
I would turn back and run
To the hidden land
But the loud sun
Christens down
T h e s k y.
I
Am found.
O l e t h i m
Scald me and drown
Me in his world’s wound.
His lightening answers my
Cry. My voice burns in his hand.
Now I am lost in the blinding
One. The sun roars at the prayer’s end.
November 1944