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Tag Archives: Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas, Diamond Raindrop and New Cardigan

1 As my regular readers will know, I am a huge fan of the writing of Dylan Thomas. I love his poetry and even more, I love his play for radio, ‘Under Milk Wood’. I used to read U.M.W. with my GCSE literature classes before the curriculum dictated only a few plays that we could read. They grew to love his humour and his marvellous use of language almost as much as I did. Of course, they loved that the name of the seaside village where Under Milk Wood is set is named, Llareggub, bugger all backwards! He died in New York having continued his reading tour despite having a serious chest infection and he died of pneumonia at only 39. What a tragic waste of an incredible talent though he has left us some magnificent treasures. I have posted here, here and here about his work. Click on the links for some Under Milk Wood, Poem in October and Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.

2 I found this beautiful diamond of a raindrop in a newly formed Lupin leaf. Click on the photo for really beautiful detail.

Raindrop in a Lupin leaf

3 Today I have finished of the multi-coloured cardigan for Grand-baby B by sewing in all the ends. I am very pleased with it though I think it’ll be a while until she grows into it. Better that than too small!

For Grand-baby B – I just love the buttons!

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on May 2, 2014 in Beauty, knitting, nature, photography, Postaday 2014

Tags: 'Under Milk Wood', Dylan Thomas, Richard Burton

Choir Baby, Back View and Dylan Thomas

06 Mar

1 Singing today was brilliant, learning a song for next week’s gig with Rachel Rose Reid. Choir-baby E now joins in our warm up exercises and loves our singers. Here she is with Daisy, one of our new and very talented members who will be the support act at the gig.

Poster for our gig

Daisy Berks and Choir-baby E

Exercises!

Warm up

Pretty hair decoration

2 I stood behind this delightful felted hair decoration today.

3 A good friend sent me a link to my all-time favourite poet, Dylan Thomas, today. Do click and listen to many amazing Welsh actors reading, ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, one of Dylan Thomas’ wonderful poems. Click here. Thank you so much, D.

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on March 6, 2014 in Beauty, music, photography, Postaday 2014, singing

Tags: Dylan Thomas, Rachel Rose Reid, The Suitcase Singers

Under Milk Wood, Bird Visitors and Wild Winds

26 Jan

1 Another duvet day but with the special treat this morning of hearing some of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood on the radio. That is my favourite piece of literature even above Romeo and Juliet! Just listen to Richard Burton reading the opening lines by clicking here. It’s 60 years since UMW was first broadcast. Mum and Dad bought the recording on two 78rpm records and played it often and so I grew up hearing the best radio play ever.

2 It’s the Big Garden Bird Watch today (where people all over the country count the birds in their garden or park for one hour over the weekend) and, feeling better, I took my duvet downstairs to watch for the birds. The weather is still so wild that there were few but in the odd moments between showers and gusts of wind, one or two of our regulars called in.

Blackbird

Magpie

Pretty pigeon

2 The wind has been every-which-way today. The weather vane hasn’t known which way to go!

Blowing West?

…or East?

14 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 26, 2014 in Beauty, birds, environment, literature, nature, photography, poetry, Postaday 2014

Tags: 'Under Milk Wood', Big Garden Bird Watch, Dylan Thomas, Richard Burton

Storm, Dahlia and ‘Poem in October’

27 Oct

1 It’s a very grey day today and we are promised an enormous storm with possibly 80-90 mph winds. A friend sent me this warning.

Batten down the hatches! There's a hoolie blowin' in!

Batten down the hatches! There’s a Hoolie blawin’ in!

2 The dahlias are still in flower, though, given the forecast, this may be the last we see this Autumn.

White Dahlia

3 I love the poetry of Dylan Thomas whose birthday it is today. Here for you is his ‘Poem in October’, one of my favourites. I love his lyricism and the way he plays with words and the intimations of the wonderful ‘Under Milk Wood’, to come some ten years later.

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 net 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 rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a 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 sun light
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 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 singingbirds.

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.

Dylan Thomas

16 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 27, 2013 in flowers, garden, literature, nature, photography, poetry, Postaday2013

Tags: birthday, Dylan Thomas, Dylan Thomas' birthday, Poem in October, storm warning

Turkey Broth, Chocolate Truffles and Dylan Thomas

02 Jan

1 Working to banish the bronchitis blues, I served up homemade Turkey broth for lunch.

2 Delicious chocolate truffles, a birthday present from L also help!

Delicious truffles

3 Listening to Richard Burton reading the opening to Dylan Thomas’ masterpiece ‘Under Milk Wood’ is another tonic for the soul.If you want a real treat, just listen to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuPO2Kvqlms

“To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.”

‘Under Milk Wood’ by Dylan Thomas

and if I have caught your interest, you may like this link too.