Publishing my Edward Thomas

Visiting 'Edward Thomas' at Lincoln College.

Thanks to Professor Stephen Gill's kindness I was able to have lunch at Lincoln College, then visit the archives to see the College Edward Thomas archive material.

From the Porter's Lodge

Edward's stair, no 12, in the quad called the Grove.

 In the archive :

An intriguing letter on the back of the poem, 'Roads'.

His own copy of Shelley.

The manuscript of 'Oxford' - touching in its small neat hand, so urgent that it be well-received as he was 23 and penniless with a family to support.

I will look at the rest in another blog.

 

 

 

 Poem: 

Roads

I LOVE roads:
The goddesses that dwell
Far along invisible
Are my favourite gods.

Roads go on
While we forget, and are
Forgotten like a star
That shoots and is gone.

On this earth 'tis sure
We men have not made
Anything that doth fade
So soon, so long endure:

The hill road wet with rain
In the sun would not gleam
Like a winding stream
If we trod it not again.

They are lonely
While we sleep, lonelier
For lack of the traveller
Who is now a dream only.

From dawn's twilight
And all the clouds like sheep
On the mountains of sleep
They wind into the night.

The next turn may reveal
Heaven: upon the crest
The close pine clump, at rest
And black, may Hell conceal.

Often footsore, never
Yet of the road I weary,
Though long and steep and dreary
As it winds on for ever.

Helen of the roads,
The mountain ways of Wales
And the Mabinogion tales,
Is one of the true gods,
Abiding in the trees,

The threes and fours so wise,
The larger companies,
That by the roadside be,
And beneath the rafter

Else uninhabited
Excepting by the dead;
And it is her laughter
At morn and night I hear

When the thrush cock sings
Bright irrelevant things,
And when the chanticleer
Calls back to their own night

Troops that make loneliness
With their light footsteps' press,
As Helen's own are light.
Now all roads lead to France

And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance:
Whatever the road bring

To me or take from me,
They keep me company
With their pattering,
Crowding the solitude

Of the loops over the downs,
Hushing the roar of towns
And their brief multitude.