No man believes

Dylan Thomas

1914 to 1953

Poem Image

No man believes who, when a star falls shot,
Cries not aloud blind as a bat,
Cries not in terror when a bird is drawn
Into the quicksand feathers down,
Who does not make a wound in faith
When any light goes out, and life is death.

No man believes who cries not, God is not,
Who feels not coldness in the heat,
In the breasted summer longs not for spring,
No breasted girl, no man who, young
And green, sneers not at the old sky.
No man believes who does not wonder why.

Believe and be saved. No man believes
Who curses not what makes and saves,
No man upon this cyst of earth
Believes who does not lance his faith,
No man, no man, no man.

And this is true, no man can live
Who does not bury God in a deep grave
And then raise up the skeleton again,
No man who does not break and make,
Who in the bones finds not new faith,
Lends not flesh to ribs and neck,
Who does not break and make his final faith.