The Country Clergy

I see them working in old rectories

By the sun’s light, by candlelight,

Venerable men, their black cloth

A little dusty, a little green

With holy mildew. And yet their skulls,

Ripening over so many prayers,

Toppled into the same grave

With oafs and yokels. They left no books,

Memorial to their lonely thought

In grey parishes; rather they wrote

On men’s hearts and in the minds

Of young children sublime words

Too soon forgotten. God in his time

Or out of time will correct this.

*From R. S. Thomas, Collected Poems 1945-1990 (London: Phoenix, 1993), p. 82.