Publishing my Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas and his dogs, real and in poems.

Irish Terrier

Rags, the dog the Thomases had during Edward's last four years, was an Irish Terrier. They grow long and shaggy coats- this one has clearly been 'stripped' a process of removing the hair by hand.
I love dogs so Rags does feature from time to time in the novel, thirteen times in fact. Here is one of them:

The children were all in a line, Baba holding her big brother’s and sister’s hands, wading back towards us along the muddy stream. They were soaked and their legs were dyed with the deep carmine stain of Leddington soil. We laughed.

‘Oh Edwy, we’ll try America if it’s what you want, but we must all be together. I can be happy anywhere then. ’

‘I know that, Helen. But then is it what I want? I have to think about what suits me and my work. It’s for your sake too. And it’s changing; I think I’ve gone astray all these years. But perhaps I’m getting nearer to finding myself, Helen, whatever that means.’

I put my arms round him, held him.

 The children stepped out of the water.

 ‘Hey, come here you scallywags and clean yourselves up on the grass. Your mother and I don’t want you dripping over us. Rags, clear off – no – Rags!’

Rags shook a great deal of the Ludstock Brook onto us, the water-drops leaping and sparkling across the glare of the sun and falling like rain, or like a blessing, on my hot skin.

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I remember from Helen's Under Storm's Wing that Bronwen was given a bull terrier, but it had to go, being too much of a killer. Edward Thomas was, it seems, not at all fond of cats. Many bird lovers feel the same.
A Cat

She had a name among the children;
But no one loved though someone owned
Her, locked her out of doors at bedtime
And had her kittens duly drowned.

In Spring, nevertheless, this cat
Ate blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales,
And birds of bright voice and plume and flight,
As well as scraps from neighbours’ pails.

I loathed and hated her for this;
One speckle on a thrush’s breast
Was worth a million such; and yet
She lived long, till God gave her rest.


My favourite dog in the poems is the little  Welsh terrier in Man and Dog- or rather half-Welsh. We know from Thomas's notebook that the encounter took place in November 1914, the poem being written in January 1915. It is concerned with soldiers and the war, but this little episode stands aside from that.


'He laughed and whistled to the small brown bitch
With spots of blue that hunted in the ditch.
Her foxy Welsh grandfather must have paired
Beneath him. He kept sheep in Wales and scared
 Strangers, I will warrant, with his pearl eye
And trick of shrinking off as he were shy,
Then following close in silence for---for what?
'No rabbit, never fear, she ever got,
Yet always hunts. To-day she nearly had one:
She would and she wouldn't. 'Twas like that.
The bad one!
She's not much use, but still she's company, '
Though I'm not. She goes everywhere with me.