In the beginning

Dylan Thomas

1914 to 1953

Poem Image
Track 1

Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.

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In the beginning was the word, the word
In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
That set alight the weathers from a spark,
Before the pitch was forking to a sun;
One smile of light across the empty face;
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon;
A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower;
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The ribbed original of love.
First characters of birth and death.
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun;
The brain was celled and soldered in the thought
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.
In the beginning was the mounting fire
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile;
In the beginning was the pale signature,
Touched the first cloud and left a sign.
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock
Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light
The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail
Before the veins were shaking in their sieve,
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas,
The secret oils that drive the grass.
That from the solid bases of the light
In the beginning was the secret brain.