Another poem by R.S. Thomas

Tell me, what did Shelly dream? And how did love deceive him?

1963 edition, dedicated to the great James Hanley

Song at the Year's Turning
Shelley dreamed it. Now the dream decays.
The props crumble. The familiar ways
Are stale with tears trodden underfoot.
The heart's flower withers at the root.
Bury it, then, in history's sterile dust.
The slow years shall tame your tawny lust.

Love deceived him; what is there to say
The mind brought you by a better way 
To this despair? Lost in the world's wood
You cannot stanch the bright menstrual blood.
The earth sickens; under naked boughs
The frost comes to barb your broken vows.

Is there blessing? Light's peculiar grace
In cold splendour robes this tortured place
For strange marriage. Voices in the wind
Weave a garland where a mortal sinned.
                                                                                  Winter rots you; who is there to blame?
                                                                                  The new grass shall purge you in its flame.

R.S. elsewhere on the blog: "Somewhere"