To a Young Poet

R.S. Thomas. To a Young Poet

For the first twenty years you are still growing

Bodily that is: as a poet, of course,

You are not born yet. It’s the next ten

You cut your teeth on to emerge smirking

For your brash courtship of the muse.

You will take seriously those first affairs

With young poems, but no attachments

Formed then but come to shame you,

When love has changed to a grave service

Of a cold queen.

From forty on

You learn from the sharp cuts and jags

Of poems that have come to pieces

In your crude hands how to assemble

With more skill the arbitrary parts

Of ode or sonnet, while time fosters

A new impulse to conceal your wounds

From her and from a bold public,

Given to pry.

You are old now

As years reckon, but in that slower

World of the poet you are just coming

To sad manhood, knowing the smile

On her proud face is not for you.