Read "Not Forever Shall the Lord of the Red Hail" by Dylan Thomas online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Not forever shall the lord of the red hail / Hold in his velvet hand the can of blood; / He shall be wise and let his brimstone spill, / Free from their burning nests the arrows' brood.
And sweet shall fall contagion from his side, / And loud his anger stamp upon the hill.
As fire falls, two hemispheres divide, / The fields yet undivined behind the skull / Are made divine by every lightning rod,
And perish as the level lands of steel.
Both mind and matter at the golden word / Shall fall away, and leave one singing shell.
A hole in space shall keep the space of thought, / The line of earth, the curving of the heart,
And from this darkness spin the golden soul.
Intangible my world shall come to nought, / The solid world shall wither in the heat, / How soon, how soon, o lord of the red hail!