Edward Thomas quotes
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“The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.”
-- Edward ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2012). “Poems of Edward Thomas”, p.150, Other Press, LLC
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2011). “Selected Poems of Edward Thomas”, p.85, Faber & Faber
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas, “If I Should Ever By Chance”
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“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 ThomasSource : Thomas, Edward (2014). “The South Country”, p.80, Read Books Ltd
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2011). “Selected Poems of Edward Thomas”, p.100, Faber & Faber
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“Yes; I remember Adlestrop- The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June.”
-- Edward ThomasSource : 'Adlestrop' (1917)
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2012). “Poems of Edward Thomas”, p.17, Other Press, LLC
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“NovemberÂ’s days are thirty: NovemberÂ’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 -
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“Verse is the natural speech of men, as singing is of birds'The Week's Survey, 18 June 1904”
-- Edward ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2011). “Selected Poems of Edward Thomas”, p.41, Faber & Faber
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“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 ThomasSource : 'Tall Nettles' (1917)
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (1997). “Poems”, p.16, Imperial War Museum
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2008). “The Annotated Collected Poems”, Bloodaxe Books Limited
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“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 ThomasSource : Edward Thomas (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Edward Thomas (Illustrated)”, p.21, Delphi Classics
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