Especially when the October wind
	With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
	Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
	And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
	By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
	Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
	My busy heart who shudders as she talks
	Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

	Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
	On the horizon walking like the trees
	The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
	Of the star-gestured children in the park.
	Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
	Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
	Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
	Some let me make you of the water's speeches.

	Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock
	Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
	Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
	And tells the windy weather in the cock.
	Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
	The signal grass that tells me all I know
	Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
	Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.

	Especially when the October wind
	(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
	The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
	With fists of turnips punishes the land,
	Some let me make you of the heartless words.
	The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
	Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
	By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.


			Especially when the October wind

Dylan Marlais Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales on 27 October 1914. In 1934 his first book of poetry Eighteen poems appeared, followed by Twenty-five poems in 1936, Deaths and Entrances in 1946 and in 1952 his final volume Collected Poems. He also published many short stories, wrote filmscripts, broadcast stories and talks, did a series of lecture tours in the United States and wrote Under Milkwood, the radio play for voices.

During his fourth lecture tour of the United States in 1953, and a few days after his 39th birthday, he collapsed in his New York hotel and died on November 9th at St Vincents Hospital. His body was sent back to Laugharne, Wales, where his grave is marked by a simple wooden cross.

In July 1994 his wife, Caitlin Thomas died in Italy, where she had spent most of the years of her life after the death of Dylan Thomas. Her body is buried next to his.

Warrick D. G. Whatman

• Biography
• Another Biography
• Bibliography
• A Commerative Page
• Dylan Thomas: Return Journey

• The Works of Dylan Thomas
• "Fern Hill"
• "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
• "All All and All"
• "Lie still, sleep becalmed"
• "The hand that signed the paper felled a city"