Versedays: Clown in the Moon by Dylan Thomas

Image Credit: Birdy

Versedays is back! I had actually forgotten about it because I hadn't been very active on the blog. I missed the presence of poetry and my fellow bloggers also said that they were waiting for Versedays. So here it is. This week I have chosen Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet who immortalized the phrase, "Do not go gently into the night..." I chose him because I wanted to begin with a famous poet born in October. And for the first Versedays in a long time I chose this beautiful poem, by Dylan Thomas born on 27th October, with haunting imagery called "Clown in the Moon."

Since I am not too good at interpretation of poetry, I read up others' interpretations. The voice in the poem is that of a clown on the moon. He represents the mask of happiness that people wear in life and he says that if he were to take it off and land on earth, the world as we know it 'would crumble.' Here is a very lucid interpretation of the poem for those who would like to understand it further.

Clown in the Moon

by

Dylan Thomas

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.