Four songs on texts of Dylan Thomas

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles 
In children's circuses coul stay their troubles? 
There was a time they could cry over books, 
But time has set its maggot on their track. 
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe. 
What's never known is safest in this life. 
Under the skysigns they who have no arms 
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost 
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
(Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)
In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor
Sewing a shroud for a journey
By the light of the meat-eating sun.
Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun.
With my red veins full of money,
In the final direction of the elementary town
I advance as long as forever is.

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes. 
I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind. 
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather. 
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, an any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace. 
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast. 

I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind. 

I have heard may years of telling,
And many years should see some change. 

The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground.