Lights Out
Lights Out
Original Text
Edward Thomas, Collected Poems, with a Foreword by Walter de la Mare (London: Selwyn and Blount, 1920): 81-82. PR 6039 H55A17 1920 Robarts Library.
1I have come to the borders of sleep,
2The unfathomable deep
3Forest where all must lose
4Their way, however straight,
5Or winding, soon or late;
6They cannot choose.
7Many a road and track
8That, since the dawn's first crack,
9Up to the forest brink,
10Deceived the travellers,
11Suddenly now blurs,
12And in they sink.
13Here love ends,
14Despair, ambition ends,
15All pleasure and all trouble,
16Although most sweet or bitter,
17Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
18Than tasks most noble.
19There is not any book
20Or face of dearest look
21That I would not turn from now
22To go into the unknown
23I must enter and leave alone
24I know not how.
25The tall forest towers;
26Its cloudy foliage lowers
27Ahead, shelf above shelf;
28Its silence I hear and obey
29That I may lose my way
30And myself.
Publication Start Year
1917
Publication Notes
"Edward Eastaway," Poems (London: Selwyn & Blount, 1917)
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1999.
Rhyme