Too long, skeleton

Dylan Thomas

1914 to 1953

Poem Image

Too long, skeleton, death’s risen
Out of the soil and seed into the drive,
Chalk cooled by leaves in the hot season,
Too long, skeleton, death’s all alive
From nape to toe, a sanatorium piece
Sly as an adder, rid of fleas.
Take now content, no longer posturing
As raped and reaped, the final emblem.
Thy place is filled, bones bid for auction,
The prism of the eye now void by suction,
New man best whose blood runs thick,
Rather than charnel-house as symbol
Of the moment and the dead hour.