R.S.Thomas

This morning, we take a look at Ronald Stuart Thomas (March 29, 1913 – September 25, 2000), published as R. S. Thomas, Welsh poet and Anglican priest noted for nationalism and spirituality.

It has been said about Thomas that "He was the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn of Wales because he was such a troubler of the Welsh conscience. He was one of the major English language and European poets of the 20th century."

The Other

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl
calling
far off and a fox barking
miles away. It is then that 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. And the
thought comes
of that other being who is
awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.

--R.S. Thomas

[R.S. Thomas: Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Phoenix 2000)]