Andrew Motion on Old Man by Edward Thomas

Andrew Motion on Old Man...

"Old Man was one of the first poems Edward Thomas wrote after escaping the shackles of his prose-writing - which makes the confidence of its unconfidence all the more remarkable. Taking the most familiar kind of sight (a child running in and out of a cottage), and without ever raising its voice, the poem investigates the operations of memory with wonderful sympathy and subtlety. In the process, it preserves a moment of time while at the same time looking far back into the past and far forward into the future. And throughout the whole thing, Thomas convinces us that he is actually engaged in an act of thinking, rather than presenting us with a rounded conclusion to thought. For all these reasons, the poem comes fully alive, whenever we read it."

Old Man by Edward Thomas (1878 - 1917)

Old Man, or Lads-Love, - in the name there's nothing

To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man,

The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree,

Growing with rosemary and lavender.

Even to one that knows it well, the names

Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is:

At least, what that is clings not to the names

In spite of time. And yet I like the names.

The herb itself I like not, but for certain

I love it, as someday the child will love it

Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush

Whenever she goes in or out of the house.

Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivelling

The shreds at last on to the path,

Thinking perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs

Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still

But half as tall as she, though it is not old;

So well she clips it. Not a word she says;

And I ca only wonder how much hereafter

She will remember, with that bitter scent,

Of garden rows, and ancient damson trees

Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door

A low thick bush beside the door, and me

Forbidding her to pick.

As for myself,

Where first I met the bitter scent is lost.

I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,

Sniff them and think and sniff again and try

Once more to think what it is I am remembering,

Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,

Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,

With no meaning, than this bitter one.

I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray

And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;

Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait

For what I should, yet never can, remember;

No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush

Of Lad's-love, or Old Man, no child beside,

Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;

Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end

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