Source: File: Edward
Thomas at Steep in 1914.jpg, Edward Thomas: Now All Roads Lead to France.
[online] (updated April 25, 2013
by Gerry
) Available at: <https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/edward-thomas-now-all-roads-lead-to-france/>
Accessed: 13 December 2014].
By shortest days of December -
In a mournful time of a year -
With frost cracking underfoot,
Comes recollection of springtime,
When soft, young sunshine,
Shone upon a time of peace.
Amid waking days of 1914,
Edward Thomas in footsteps,
Followed celandine tracks,
About fertile Gloucestershire -
A man of 35 - yet to be a poet.
Deeper into a woody glade,
Came crossroads to Dymock.
Where roads diverged -
One rocky, one not -
With faded Daffodil heads,
Long gone to crisp browns.
Which path then is best to take?
Temptation chooses un-trodden
Ways - where eyes have little seen -
So fate might lead to newer places,
Where budding poets might seek.
Amid privacy of woods,
In solitude Edward dwelled -
On years of achievements,
And those same years of failure;
A father of two, with loyal wife.
He surely had gained,
What all English men desire.
Yet with such sober success,
Brings financial pressures.
He reflected over money’s needs,
Below the bright bows of trees -
Leaves spun inside a jostling mind.
Lifted in his sublime thoughts,
By descent of Romanticism -
The lightness weighs heavy
On shoulders - where suicide
Might hang amid the trees.
Yet the days of Edward Thomas
Were still to ripen - after years
Of wanting and wishing - of visions
Formed in endless woodland walks,
He paused upon an English stile,
Looking far out, to far off fields.
In Long days, England paused,
And with deep breaths braced -
As Edward paused and listened -
Peaceful as the peaceful years,
When all wars were far abroad,
He jumped into the long grass.
From the other side of a pond,
By some act of providence
Came a poet - An American.
Robert Frost and family desired
For life ‘under thatch,’ so arrived
In the county of Gloucester.
By Forest of Dean, down Ledbury
Way, in desire for rural living they
Came upon the village of Dymock -
Already a sanctuary of poets.
And by August, also the home
Of an aspiring Edward Thomas.
Edward Thomas, Robert Frost -
In those weeks bonded as friends -
Almost inseparable - in union,
Poets and men, from continents
Apart, but close in love of words.
By water’s edge and under woody
Glades, they crossed miles from
Leddington to Ryton, Malverns
And Mayhil - they sat, they talked
And smoked under shady trees.
By slow summers pace, came
Self-awareness for Edward -
This American man shared
His ideals and ideas of diction,
Language and belief of poetry -
As idealized form of literature.
‘You have the ideas - you have
Knowledge of your language
All this time you’ve read and
Written of others - reviewed
Their work – you should take
Your experiences and make
Time, just for you to write,’
Such words Frost repeated.
With August arriving at an end,
Its closing finality, like a gate
Shutting on a garden of peace.
Unknown time forgotten - walled
Behind a fence - now a place
Never again to be revisted.
Beyond the circle of Dymock
War had stirred - at 36
Edward Thomas, married
With children, maybe thought
War, was a young man’s game.
Awoken from his modesty,
Edward Thomas moved on,
And began to write - as 1914
Slowly crept into winter -
Under dulling December
Skies, Edward took up the pen.
Between the third day
And seventh of December,
Edward began as writer
Of poetry, with the idea
To issue his poems, under
A name of Edward Eastway.
Source: File:
Edward Thomas (poet) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [online] Available at:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_(poet)> Accessed: 13 December
2014].
Source: File:
Friends of the Dymock Poets, Edward Thomas (1878-1917). [online] Available at:
<http://www.dymockpoets.org.uk/Websites.htm>
Accessed: 13 December 2014].
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #ww1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered
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