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Miscellany One: Poems, Stories, Broadcasts
Includes "Do Not Go Gentle Into the Night", the script "Return Journey", and four stories including "The Map of Love".
Paperback
First published December 1, 1963
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About the author
Dylan Thomas
593 books1,414 followersDylan Marlais Thomas (1914-1953) was a Welsh poet who wrote in English. Many regard him as one of the 20th century's most influential poets.
In addition to poetry, Thomas wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, with the latter frequently performed by Thomas himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his booming, at times, ostentatious voice, with a subtle Welsh lilt, became almost as famous as his works. His best-known work includes the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, "Do not go gentle into that good night." Appreciative critics have also noted the superb craftsmanship and compression of poems such as "In my craft or sullen art" and the rhapsodic lyricism of Fern Hill.
In addition to poetry, Thomas wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, with the latter frequently performed by Thomas himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his booming, at times, ostentatious voice, with a subtle Welsh lilt, became almost as famous as his works. His best-known work includes the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, "Do not go gentle into that good night." Appreciative critics have also noted the superb craftsmanship and compression of poems such as "In my craft or sullen art" and the rhapsodic lyricism of Fern Hill.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 11, 2015
‘Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light’
It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that a lot of people (especially the newer generation) would instantly recall these words from the movie Interstellar – a technical master class that was, however, a conceptual and substantial B at best (modern Hollywood in a nutshell). Dylan Thomas, however, deserves to be measured on a completely different level.
Poetry is a challenge to most of us. It is an art form with great merit, but one that requires constant re-reading before one can truly ‘get it’. This is very much the case with Thomas. The lines quoted above are from his most ‘accessible’ pieces from this collection, which is a mix of poems, prose, and radio broadcasts.
Even when switching to prose, Dylan Thomas retains his dense yet beautiful cadence and rhythm from his poetry. A lot of this must originate from the fact that his native tongue is not in fact English, but Welsh; albeit a British language, it could be considered as obscure as Estonian or Finnish, but very lyrical.
Growing up in the secluded island of Wales with its unique topography, one of Thomas’ favourite themes is Man’s communion with Nature. Nature gives life to the human body: without it, we are nothing.
‘My world was christened in a stream of milk’
He reminds us that the same rules that govern the forces of nature dictate that humanity is mortal. In his stories, his characters, like a plant seeking sunlight, are always seeking a life force; whether it be a childhood friend, innocence, or spying on others pleasure. In The Visitor, we vicariously live the last moments of man as he clings on to his soul despite the rapid degradation of his body.
Death is always just around the corner. “Do not go gentle’ was an ode to his dying father, but even more beautiful is the follow-up, appropriately named Elegy, a testament to the strength (but ultimate futility) of the human spirit:
‘All his bones crying, and poor in all but pain.
Being innocent, he dreaded that he died
Hating his God, but what he was was plain:
An old kind man brave in his burning pride’.
I can’t claim to have grasped everything that Dylan Thomas was trying to say. I did, however, grasp the essence. To someone living in a culturally barren, concrete-filled desert pit urban overload, his words to me are like a rush of green in my veins.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light’
It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that a lot of people (especially the newer generation) would instantly recall these words from the movie Interstellar – a technical master class that was, however, a conceptual and substantial B at best (modern Hollywood in a nutshell). Dylan Thomas, however, deserves to be measured on a completely different level.
Poetry is a challenge to most of us. It is an art form with great merit, but one that requires constant re-reading before one can truly ‘get it’. This is very much the case with Thomas. The lines quoted above are from his most ‘accessible’ pieces from this collection, which is a mix of poems, prose, and radio broadcasts.
Even when switching to prose, Dylan Thomas retains his dense yet beautiful cadence and rhythm from his poetry. A lot of this must originate from the fact that his native tongue is not in fact English, but Welsh; albeit a British language, it could be considered as obscure as Estonian or Finnish, but very lyrical.
Growing up in the secluded island of Wales with its unique topography, one of Thomas’ favourite themes is Man’s communion with Nature. Nature gives life to the human body: without it, we are nothing.
‘My world was christened in a stream of milk’
He reminds us that the same rules that govern the forces of nature dictate that humanity is mortal. In his stories, his characters, like a plant seeking sunlight, are always seeking a life force; whether it be a childhood friend, innocence, or spying on others pleasure. In The Visitor, we vicariously live the last moments of man as he clings on to his soul despite the rapid degradation of his body.
Death is always just around the corner. “Do not go gentle’ was an ode to his dying father, but even more beautiful is the follow-up, appropriately named Elegy, a testament to the strength (but ultimate futility) of the human spirit:
‘All his bones crying, and poor in all but pain.
Being innocent, he dreaded that he died
Hating his God, but what he was was plain:
An old kind man brave in his burning pride’.
I can’t claim to have grasped everything that Dylan Thomas was trying to say. I did, however, grasp the essence. To someone living in a culturally barren, concrete-filled desert pit urban overload, his words to me are like a rush of green in my veins.
February 14, 2022
A great introduction to his poems, his fiction and drama, and his broadcast work. His prose is dense, poetic and occasionally opaque, but always wonderful and uniquely DT.
November 1, 2016
A fine sampler of the prose and poems of Dylan Thomas.
July 31, 2025
This collection of Thomas' work includes his poetry, short stories and broadcasts. I found this in a charity shop and took it with me while I hiked the South Downs Way a couple of weeks ago. I'll never forget reading his poetry as I sat by my campsite at this fly fishery on the trail watching the sunset. It's clear that Thomas was primarily a poet, his poetry is stunning and obviously there's the famous Don't Go Gently Into That Good Night but beyond that his poems are incredibly striking. I found that his short stories to be honest were beyond confusing. Often they would be heavily religious relating to the garden of eden and in general I'd feel lost reading them. The broadcasts too were quite interesting detailing his childhood.
January 4, 2017
I think I need to get one of those Macmillan guides to explain just what the hell is going on. Don't get me wrong, I love the lyricism and the visual metaphors, I just don't understand them. Having said that my brain sort of got into the zone by the time of the stories, and the broadcasts - particularly the Christmas memories and his return to pretty, shitty city Swansea - were even better.
January 25, 2022
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
* * *
I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking
Through the rotating shell, strong
As motor muscle on the drill, driving
Through vision and the girdered nerve.
From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled
Off from the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.
Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A creature in my bones I
Rounded my globe of heritage, journey
In bottom gear through night-geared man.
I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel
Rammed in the marching heart, hole
In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled
Death on the mouth that ate the gas.
Sharp in my second death I marked the hills, harvest
Of hemlock and the blades, rust
My blood upon the tempered dead, forcing
My second struggling from the grass.
And power was contagious in my birth, second
Rise of the skeleton and
Rerobing of the naked ghost. Manhood
Spat up from the resuffered pain.
I dreamed my genesis in sweat of death, fallen
Twice in the feeding sea, grown
Stale of Adam's brine until, vision
Of new man strength, I seek the sun.
* * *
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
* * *
Listen to Dylan Thomas's story "The Followers" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma4Xx2loTmw
* * *
Listen to Dylan Thomas's broadcast "Reminiscences of Childhood" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce_qzuBPQpc
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
- The force that through the green fuse drives the flower, pg. 7
* * *
I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking
Through the rotating shell, strong
As motor muscle on the drill, driving
Through vision and the girdered nerve.
From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled
Off from the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.
Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A creature in my bones I
Rounded my globe of heritage, journey
In bottom gear through night-geared man.
I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel
Rammed in the marching heart, hole
In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled
Death on the mouth that ate the gas.
Sharp in my second death I marked the hills, harvest
Of hemlock and the blades, rust
My blood upon the tempered dead, forcing
My second struggling from the grass.
And power was contagious in my birth, second
Rise of the skeleton and
Rerobing of the naked ghost. Manhood
Spat up from the resuffered pain.
I dreamed my genesis in sweat of death, fallen
Twice in the feeding sea, grown
Stale of Adam's brine until, vision
Of new man strength, I seek the sun.
- I dreamed my genesis, pg. 16-17
* * *
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Do not go gentle into that good night, pg. 31
* * *
Listen to Dylan Thomas's story "The Followers" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma4Xx2loTmw
* * *
Listen to Dylan Thomas's broadcast "Reminiscences of Childhood" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce_qzuBPQpc
April 21, 2019
A bit of a mixed bag of a collection but one of the highest quality. It features a range of Thomas' poems plus a few of his short stories and a script that could be considered incredibly self-indulgent if handled by a lesser writer. I love the range that we see from the poet as we go through this anthology and the absolute mix and mash of themes and ideas that he went over throughout his life and career.
June 7, 2021
A decent brief representation of the work of Dylan Thomas, collecting some of his poems (including well-known favourites like 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion' and 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'), short stories (I liked 'The Mouse and the Woman') and broadcast transcripts. Thomas is a bit more abstract than I usually like, and Miscellany One is not a comprehensive piece, but it is a good taste of the Welshman's style.
September 6, 2022
Really loved and enjoyed his poetry, but was less wild on the broadcasts they chose for this collection
February 19, 2023
I took a year-long break for this book and now I finally finished it. I actually really like his writing style but when I just started reading the short stories I did not understand anything
January 28, 2025
I found this very heavy going. I struggled with the language.
October 1, 2025
Amazed and confused, but mostly just amazed.
February 28, 2015
'Memories of Christmas' and 'Do not go gentle into that good night'. Both are firm everlasting favourites. So good to revisit and revive. Note to self: read every year at Christmas.
Love how Dylan Thomas ramble and reminisce, reminding me of growing up in my own "ugly, lovely town". Where the likenesses of those exact same characters lived. I love how he would "plunge my hand in the snow and bring out whatever I can find". Stimulating my own thoughts to find and replay those half forgotten stories and polishing them again to a much shinier memory than they ever were.
Love how Dylan Thomas ramble and reminisce, reminding me of growing up in my own "ugly, lovely town". Where the likenesses of those exact same characters lived. I love how he would "plunge my hand in the snow and bring out whatever I can find". Stimulating my own thoughts to find and replay those half forgotten stories and polishing them again to a much shinier memory than they ever were.
Read
August 7, 2012A short collection of Thomas's work. The radio scripts are very enjoyable and worth reading. The popularpoems are found here.
June 30, 2015
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is great but the rest...nah.
December 5, 2015
can take or leave the poetry but a couple of the short stories are flippin' ace.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews