the untamed

Well, well. Despite all its restraint and austerity, every now and then R. S. Thomas's poetry unexpectedly yields to fleeting, precious moments of... unrestraint. Here is a favourite one - in a walled garden, the classic locus of sexual rites of passage.


The Untamed

My garden is the wild
Sea of the grass. Her garden
Shelters between walls.
The tide could break in;
I should be sorry for this.

There is peace there of a kind,
Though not the deep peace
Of wild places. Her care
For green life has enabled
The weak things to grow.

Despite my first love,
I take sometimes her hand,
Following straight paths
Between flowers, the nostril
Clogged with their thick scent.

The old softness of lawns
Persuading the slow foot
Leads to defection; the silence
Holds with its gloved hand
The wild hawk of the mind.

But not for long, windows,
Opening in the trees
Call the mind back
To its true eyrie; I stoop
Here only in play.


R. S. Thomas, Collected Poems (J M Dent, 1993).