The poetry of R. S. Thomas conveys the prime impression of a single force directed to one carefully limited theme, the isolation of the natural rhythm of man's life ("Rhythm of the long scythe") in the natural order, seen with irony, occasional bitterness, with urbane control of word and metric, and a tautness of mind, the fruit of a particular urbanity. Indeed, there is especial irony in attributing this urbane quality to a poet who so passionately repudiates the urban.

For all the complexity of Thomas's tone and attitudes, it seemed that his craft had declared itself in full stature in the first volume, The Stones of the Field, in 1946, and then for nine years, through An Acre of Land (1952), the long broad cast poem, The Minister (1953) to the first collected edition, Song at the Year's Turning in 1955, had done no more than amplify the few original themes...