E Thomas read by Classic Poetry Aloud:

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Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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After Rain

by Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917)

The rain of a night and a day and a night

Stops at the light

Of this pale choked day. The peering sun

Sees what has been done.

The road under the trees has a border new

of purple hue

Inside the border of bright thin grass:

For all that has

Been left by November of leaves is torn

From hazel and thorn

And the greater trees. Throughout the copse

No dead leaf drops

On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,

At the wind's return:

The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed

Are thinly spread

In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,

As if they played.

What hangs from the myriad branches down there

So hard and bare

Is twelve yellow apples lovely to see

On one crab-tree.

And on each twig of every tree in the dell

Uncountable

Crystals both dark and bright of the the rain

That begins again.

First aired: 10 September 2008

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Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud 2008