A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Never until the mankind making

Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round

Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.

I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,

Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

Negativa a lamentar la muerte por fuego de una niña en Londres

Jamás hasta que la humanidad hacedora

de la bestia, el pájaro y la flor,
del procrear y toda la oscuridad humillante,
diga con el silencio la última luz rompiente
y la hora tranquila
haya venido desde el mar brincando en su montura,

y yo deba penetrar de nuevo

en el redondo Zion de la burbuja de agua
y en la sinagoga de la espiga
dejaré que la sombra de un sonido rece
o sembraré mi simiente de sal
en un mínimo valle de cilicio, por lamentar
la majestad y el arder de esta muerte de niña.
No asesinaré
la humanidad de su partida con una verdad grave
ni blasfemaré por las estaciones del aliento
con alguna tardía
elegía de inocencia y juventud.

Honda, con los primeros muertos yace la hija de Londres

ataviada por los amigos perdurables
los granos sin edad, las venas oscuras de su madre,
secreta junto al agua sin quejas
del Támesis jinete.
Tras la primera muerte ya no hay otra.

Versión de Elizabeth Azcona Cranwell

The regularity of "Refusal" lies in the number of syllables in every line

and the way they rhyme. The metre is accentual and vaguely
reminiscent of Anglo-Saxon poetry, where the stressed
syllables alliterate, that is, they begin with the same consonant
sound (e.g. "mankind making", "bird beast", "last light", "shadow of a
sound", "salt seed", etc).

There is no point in trying to identify feet; I am afraid this poem was

not built by grouping syllables into feet - in other words, the rhythm
is not accentual-syllabic. Listening to Thomas' reading of the poem
will be much more useful: he marks the rhythm very clearly.

1. “A Refusal to Mourn the Death by Fire, of a Child in London” begins with an

allusion to the beginnings of humankind ( mankind making) and the author states
that he will never lament with words (pray the shadow of a sound) or cry (Or sow
my salt seed) for the death of the child who died, at least not until the end of
times arrives (the last light breaking) or his own death (I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead…). Because if he does so then he will be depriving the
child of an honorable death, even though he refuses to mourn that is what he is
doing. I suppose that it’s impossible not to mourn the passing away of so much
innocence and purity of a child and that’s why even if he resists to he does it
anyway. At the end Thomas describes how she now lies at the bottom of the
Thames and earth is reclaiming her. And the final verse seems to imply that
after you suffer the loss of someone you love nothing else matters anymore
(After the first death, there is no other).
2. The first two stanzas have no punctuation marks, the first period appears at the
end of the first verse in the third stanza. As if the first stanzas have led to this
statement: The majesty and burning of the child’s death, in a hurried manner.
After this the poem starts to fade.
3. Never until the mankind making, bird, beast and flower, fathering and all humbling
darkness tells with silence the last light breaking; and the still hour Is come of the sea
tumbling in harness; and I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead
 and the synagogue of the ear of corn; shall I let pray the shadow of a sound or sow my
salt seed in the least valley of sackcloth; to mourn the majesty and burning of the
child's death.
Main verbs: “pray or sow”
4. The lack of punctuation marks makes it harder to comprehend the text.
5. Blabla
6. My salt seed: Refers to tears or the action of crying.

Valley of sackcloth:

A grave truth:

Barry, Chapter 3:

1. What post-structuralist critics do:

a) They try to pay attention to contradictions in the text, not only what the author is
saying but what he truly means to say.
b) They pick metaphors and alliterative words and make them the center of the text.
Giving them special importance at what the text really means.
c) They try to show that in fact the text is plague with contradictions therefore there
is disunity, the text is at war with itself.
d) They study closely a fragment of the text till it starts to appear multiple meanings.
e) They look for breaks in the text or omissions that show what the text really means.
2. The verbal stage: