by Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)
I have longed to move away
Language: English
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.
First published in New Verse, December 1935 as one of "Three Poems", revised 1936
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Authorship:
- by Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by David Leo Diamond (1915 - 2005), "I have longed to move away", 1944, published 1968 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Peter Dickinson (b. 1934), "I have longed to move away", from A Dylan Thomas Song Cycle, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ron Ford (b. 1959), "I have longed to move away", 1985, from Four songs on texts of Dylan Thomas, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 130