Edward Thomas Quotes & Sayings

The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet. — Edward Thomas

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again. — Edward Thomas

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint. — Edward Thomas

I like to think how easily Nature will absorb London as she absorbed the mastodon, setting her spiders to spin the winding-sheet and her worms to fill in the grave, and her grass to cover it pitifully up, adding flowers - as an unknown hand added them to the grave of Nero. — Edward Thomas

You cannot make chicken salad out of Chicken shit. — Edward Thomas

I built myself a house of glass:It took me years to make it:And I was proud. But now, alas!Would God someone would break it. — Edward Thomas

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors
Many a frozen night, and merrily
Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:
"At Mrs Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," said he,
"I slept." None knew which bush. Above the town,
Beyond 'The Drover', a hundred spot the down
In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps
More sound in France -that, too, he secret keeps. — Edward Thomas

November's days are thirty: November's earth is dirty, Those thirty days, from first to last; And the prettiest things on ground are the paths ... Few care for the mixture of earth and water, Twig, leaf, flint, thorn, Straw, feather, all that men scorn, Pounded up and sodden by flood, Condemned as mud. — Edward Thomas

And I rose up, and knew that I was tired, and continued my journey — Edward Thomas

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm tops, delicate as flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass. — Edward Thomas

Tall Nettles
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone :
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower. — Edward Thomas

I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,Sniff them and think and sniff again and tryOnce more to think what it is I am remembering,Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,With no meaning, than this bitter one. — Edward Thomas

Yes; I remember Adlestrop- The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. — Edward Thomas

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;
Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;
The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.
It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.
- A poem called DIGGING. — Edward Thomas

If he [Pound] is not careful he will take to meaning what he says instead of saying what he means. — Edward Thomas

How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead. That is what I hate, the not being able to turn round in the grave and to say It is over. — Edward Thomas

The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence. — Edward Thomas

Adlestrop
Yes, I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop
only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
— Edward Thomas

A merely great intellect can produce prose, but not poetry, not one line. — Edward Thomas

You English words?
I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer — Edward Thomas

Some Englishmen, of whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. So they allowed it to begin ... — Edward Thomas

Making war or rebellion is messy, like eating soup off a knife. — Edward Thomas

If I should ever by chance grow richI'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,And let them all to my eldest daughter. — Edward Thomas

Verse is the natural speech of men, as singing is of birds'
The Week's Survey, 18 June 1904 — Edward Thomas