Harris Float Boat Ark

The danseuse

She moved like silence swathed in light,
Like mist in moonshine clear;
A music that enamoured sight
Yet did elude the ear.

A rapture and a spirit clad
In motion soft as sleep;
The epitome of all things glad,
The sum of all that weep.

Her form was like a poet's mind,
By all sensations sought.
She seemed the substance of the wind,
One shape of lyric thought;

A being 'mid terrestrial things
Transcendently forlorn;
Through time bound far on gleaming wings
For some diviner bourn.

The rhythms of the swooning heart
Swayed to her sweet control;
Life in her keeping all was art,
And all of body soul.

Faint-shimmering in the roseate air
She seemed to ebb and flow
Like memories perilously fair,
And pale from long ago.

She stooped to grief's remembered tears,
Yearned to undawned delight.
Ah, beauty -- passionate from the years!
Oh, body -- wise and white!

She vanished like an evening cloud,
A sunset's radiant gleam.
She vanished. Life awhile endowed
The darkness with a dream.

La ballerina

Lei si muoveva come il silenzio in un bagno di luce,
come la nebbia nei limpidi moonbeams;
music that did fall in love with the view
yet eluded the ear.

A Dream and a spirit dressed as soft
movements in sleep;
the epitome of all things happy,
the sum of all those who mourn.

His image was as the mind of a poet,
sought with all the sensations.
the substance of the wind seemed
a form of lyrical thought

be a transcendent between earthly things
forgotten
live far away in time on glittering wings
the stream of a dowser.

The rhythms of the heart in ecstasy
waved its sweet control;
under his care, life was all art,
whole soul and body.

Slightly sparkling pink
air seemed to rise and fall like the tide as the memories

dangerously graceful and pale with long ago.

He bent to tears of despair remember, was deeply moved
not blossomed
ah the joy, beauty - from the years of passion!
Oh, body - sage and white!

He disappeared like a little cloud in the evening,
a radiant splendor of a sunset.
disappeared. Life for a moment gave her a dream
darkness.

unpublished poems published as an appendix to the biography of Paul Ferris. (Paul Ferris, Dylan Thomas : The Biography . London: Phoenix, 1999 - ed. Eng. Mattioli, 1885, 2008) Thomas wrote it when he was a child, and in 1937 married a dancer, Caitlin Macnamara. Caitlin had fled to London with the daughter of the painter Augustus John, Vivien, to pursue this career, and soon became the lover of the painter. He was drinking at the Wheatsheaf Augustus John when he met with his Dylan Thomas for the first time in 1936.