Foster the Light
Foster the light nor veil the manshaped moon, Nor weather winds that blow not down the bone, But strip the twelve-winded marrow from his circle; Master the night nor serve the snowman’s brain That shapes each bushy item of the air Into a polestar pointed on an icicle. Murmur of spring nor crush the cockerel’s eggs, Nor hammer back a season in the figs, But graft these four-fruited ridings on your country; Farmer in time of frost the burning leagues, By red-eyed orchards sow the seeds of snow, In your young years the vegetable century. And father all nor fail the fly-lord’s acre, Nor sprout on owl-seed like a goblin-sucker, But rail with your wizard’s ribs the heart-shaped planet; Of mortal voices to the ninnies’ choir, High lord esquire, speak up the singing cloud, And pluck a mandrake music from the marrowroot. Roll unmanly over this turning tuft, O ring of seas, nor sorrow as I shift From all my mortal lovers with a starboard smile; Nor when my love lies in the cross-boned drift Naked among the bow-and-arrow birds Shall you turn cockwise on a tufted axle. Who gave these seas their colour in a shape, Shaped my clayfellow, and the heaven’s ark In time at flood filled with his coloured doubles; O who is glory in the shapeless maps, Now make the world of me as I have made A merry manshape of your walking circle.
Dylan Thomas’s other poems:
