The Country Clergy

The Country Clergy
I see them working in old rectories
by the sun’s light, by candlelight,
venerable men, their black cloth
a little dusty, a little green
with holy mildew. And yet their skulls,
ripening over so many prayers,
toppled in to the same grave
with oafs and yokels. They left no books,
memorial to their lonely thought
in grey parishes; rather they wrote
on people’s hearts and in the minds
of young children sublime words
too soon forgotten. God, in his time
or out of time will correct this.

R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)