Dylan Thomas: Twenty-five Poems

Twenty-five Poems was published in 1936, less than two years after 18 Poems, but it shows a definite maturation in Thomas' style. The collection is marked by a deeper analysis of religion, which can be attributed to the poet's maturity, and also to the imminent threat of war.

Within this diplomatically tense environment Thomas wrote his most political poem, 'The hand that signed the paper'. It alludes to tyranny on a Biblical scale, with its references to famine and locusts, and also refers to historical abuses of status, as anonymous hands "taxed the breath" of the people. The poem is a damning but ambiguous attack on arbitrary and unfeeling power.

This rebellious streak is also evident in the poem Find Meat On Bones, which begins with a grotesque distortion of an older man's encouragement to his son to make the most of his youth before "the ladies' breasts are hags". For Thomas, mortality and decay are an inescapable part of life - and even sex, with its promise of new life, is tainted by death.

Thomas' morbidity can be seen throughout this collection, especially in the most religious of his poems. This Bread I Break draws on the significance of the bread and wine from the Eucharist, and introduces the concept of eternal life through Christ. However, just as the production of bread and wine involves the destruction of a living organism through harvesting, we are only granted redemption by Christ after the horror of the crucifixion.

Thomas was keen to explore these spiritual matters, but he was uneasy about conventional religion. The poem I Have Longed To Move Away describes religion as "the hissing of the spent lie": it is seen as out of date, inarticulate and even sinful.

Likewise, his epic series of sonnets, Alterwise By Owl-Light, explores spirituality through a confused mixture of images. He combines the Christian lamb with the pagan medusa, man's genesis with Christ's death on "horizontal cross-bones" and "Bible-leaved" truth with the Rip Van Winkle of fable.

Twenty-five Poems contains much of Thomas' most dense and introspective poetry. It outlines his own personal philosophy of religion in which he moves away from conventional Christianity. He explores his own pantheistic approach to a universe united through the powerful force of nature. In later poems these ideas will be applied to real people caught up in the midst of current events.