Poem in October by Dylan Thomas

Poem in October

        It was my thirtieth year to heaven     

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood     

        And the mussel pooled and the heron                

                        Priested shore           

                The morning beckon      

With water praying and call of seagull and rook     

And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall           

                Myself to set foot                

                        That second        

        In the still sleeping town and set forth.         

        My birthday began with the water-     

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name        

        Above the farms and the white horses                

                        And I rose            

                In a rainy autumn     

And walked abroad in shower of all my days     

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road            

                Over the border                

                        And the gates        

        Of the town closed as the town awoke.         

        A springful of larks in a rolling     

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling        

        Blackbirds and the sun of October                

                        Summery            

                On the hill's shoulder,     

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly     

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened            

                To the rain wringing                

                        Wind blow cold         

        In the wood faraway under me.         

        Pale rain over the dwindling harbour     

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail        

        With its horns through mist and the castle                

                        Brown as owls             

                But all the gardens     

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales     

Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.             

                There could I marvel                

                        My birthday        

        Away but the weather turned around.         

        It turned away from the blithe country     

And down the other air and the blue altered sky        

        Streamed again a wonder of summer                 

                        With apples             

                Pears and red currants     

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's     

Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother             

                Through the parables                 

                        Of sunlight        

        And the legends of the green chapels         

        And the twice told fields of infancy     

That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.        

        These were the woods the river and the sea                

                        Where a boy             

                In the listening     

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy     

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.             

                And the mystery                

                        Sang alive        

        Still in the water and singing birds.         

        And there could I marvel my birthday     

Away but the weather turned around. And the true        

        Joy of the long dead child sang burning                

                        In the sun.             

                It was my thirtieth        

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon        

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.             

                O may my heart's truth                

                        Still be sung        

        On this high hill in a year's turning.