I dreamed a gallop across sand
in and out the scallop of the tide
on a colourless horse as cold as a seal.
My hair and the mane of the horse
are the long white manes of the sea.
Every breath is a gulp of salt.
Now we are ocean. His hoof-prints
are pools, his quivering skin
the silk in the trough of the wave.
His muscular ellipses are
the sinuous long water of the sea
and I swim with the waves in my arms.
by Gillian Clarke
from New Poems
Why east wind chills and south wind cools
Shall not be known till windwell dries
And west’s no longer drowned
In winds that bring the fruit and rind
Of many a hundred falls;
Why silk is soft and the stone wounds
The child shall question all his days.
Why night-time rain and the breast’s blood
Both quench his thirst he’ll have a black reply.
When cometh Jack Frost? the children ask.
Shall they clasp a comet in their fists?
Not till, from high and low, their dust
Sprinkles in children’s eyes a long-last sleep
And dusk is crowded with the children’s ghosts,
Shall a white answer echo from the rooftops.
All things are known; the stars’ advice
Calls some content to travel with the winds,
Though what the stars ask as they round
Time upon time the towers of the skies
Is heard but little till the stars go out.
I hear content, and ‘Be content’
Ring like a handbell through the corridors,
And ‘Know no answer,’ and I know
No answer to the children’s cry
Of echo’s answer and the man of frost
And ghostly comets over the raised fists.
by Dylan Thomas
Rambling At The Bridge Head 