Go Gentle Into This Good Tour

We are nearing famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ “Boat House” in Laugharne, South Wales. Suddenly, our spirited guide, Emyr Griffith, bursts into radiant song as he did two nights ago during dinner, loosened up by a touch of wine.

Now, on the bus, he coaxes me into joining him at the mike for our promised duet from the poet’s last work, “Under Milk Wood,” a BBC radio play, and we sing with mock seriousness the ultra-sentimental lines of the Rev. Eli Jenkins over the coach’s scratchy speaker system:

“Every morning when I wake,/ Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,/ O please to keep Thy lovely eye/ On all poor creatures born to die./ And every evening at sun-down/ I ask a blessing on the town,/ For whether we last the night or no/ I’m sure is always touch-and-go….”

But this is deliberate low-brow verse, written to delineate Jenkins’ character, so we tempt Emyr into reciting a few celebrated poems by Dylan as we get closer to our destination. Reading at least one of the poems for the first time, Emyr resonates like the booming Dylan himself, or even Richard Burton, but without the theatrics. Just the oratorical ring, the music, and the loving lushness of lingering over consonants.

Now we hear real poetry: “This day winding down now/ At God speeded summer’s end/ In the torrent salmon sun,/ In my seashaken house/ On a breakneck of rocks/ Tangled with chirrup and fruit,/ Froth, flute, fin and quill….”

Ask a Welshman to recite a poem or sing a song, and you will have touched a happy nerve.

By the time we reach Thomas’ home, our ears are aglow with sound and with Dylan’s absorption of the force and fury of language.

The Boat House, where the poet spent his last productive years, has been transformed into a literary museum. This was his serene abode before he died at age 39, from years of alcohol abuse, during his fiery poetry-reading blitz of the U.S.

One room in the tight-as-a-mouse’s house above the estuary runs insightful videos. Another displays some of Thomas’ most memorable poems, such as the lilting “Fern Hill,” (“Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs … “), “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (an elegy on the death of his father), and “A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London” (composed during the bombardments of World War II).

Written comments, in Welsh and English, put the poems in the context of the poet’s life, and over a muted loudspeaker, Thomas’ resonant voice intones his lyrical lines.

Outside, the tide fills the estuary like a flood, fluting a larger tune, and I feel the expansiveness of the water that filled Dylan with floodgates of inspiration. Most of his poems were actually written in a small shed, now painted a too-fresh blue, some yards above the Boat House, and here one can peer into this writing studio, left as it might have been in the middle of feverish composition. Wads of crumpled paper with discarded inked words lie scattered on the floor near the desk, whose top is spread with leaves of poems. Pictures of people, including writers, cover parts of the walls.

Missing for me, however, is the prominent image of poet/novelist D. H. Lawrence, visible when my husband and I first came upon Thomas’ perch many years ago. The shed was poorly painted and therefore seemed more authentic to us. And thanks to an elegy I had written about Thomas, plus the proddings of the town bakeress who insisted I show it to the poet’s widow, the Boat House became the place where we stayed overnight with Caitlin Thomas shortly after Dylan’s death. At the time, she was writing her book, “Leftover Life To Kill.”

Whether the estuary was filled or not was critically important during our visit. “Let’s go swimming in the nude,” the wren-nosed, strawberry-blond Caitlin invited my husband, after some drinks with us at Brown’s pub. But alas for him, the tide was out.

It’s difficult on this recent visit to discover where we had dined together, throwing lobster claws out the window into the bay at our hostess’ suggestion. Nothing looks familiar, with the house turned into a museum. Only when I descend a flight of stairs toward the terrace and pass a new tearoom with fireplace do memories begin to surface.

But now we could never have thrown claws from there into the estuary, since the new stone terrace is large, with a too-high wall that makes it hard to see the water. Still, it’s lovely to sit in the sun or mist, hearing the cries of curlews and craning to see “the heron-priested shore.”

In this small house at 1 a.m., I had read Caitlin my elegy to Dylan, which began: “And raging did he burst,/ scattering rooks of cries/ To rebound alone in the rocky heron nooks,/ gongs vibrating in the sea … ” At 3 a.m., she and I had met, sick from liquor, heading toward the bathroom. My husband will always remember her pink negligee.

Brown’s Hotel, where the Thomases loved to drink, looks the same as before: an authentic, halftimbered pub on the inside, with an odor of cigarette smoke and townspeople drinking and gabbing. A few inconspicuous craft shops and a tiny door with a sign above that read “Dylan Thomas Books and Tapes” seem the only other changes made since the poet became “a monument.”

After Caitlin’s death in 1994, despite all the ensuing gossip about how she was leading her leftover life, she was buried beside Dylan in the village churchyard beneath a simple white cross. In 1982, a memorial stone to Thomas was put in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, an awesome recognition of his life as a poet.

To my surprise as we travel further through south Wales, the Welsh language of Dylan’s ancestors is still very much alive and sings out loudly with its beautiful rolled r’s and musical lilt. “Diolch!” we say to everyone who helps us. (Thanks!) “Croeso I Gymru!” (Welcome to Wales!) they answer, with an upward tilt at the end. Signs are bilingual, and an astonishing 20 to 25 percent of the population speaks Welsh.

As Emyr guides us through other parts of South Wales, which include the hilly Brecon Beacons National Park in the middle and the wild Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in the west, it’s delightful to see that this area remains incredibly rural. Cream-colored sheep (about 12,000,000 in Wales) spotlight hills, ridges and plains, and unless you go to the industrial towns, the country couldn’t be more green and peaceful, even though it’s only a few hours from London.

Underground, though, spread the old, intricate tunnels of “black gold” - the coal that was so important to the economy. In these labyrinths, colliers risked danger every day, but after work they loved to sing in the renowned Welsh male choirs, followed by drinks at a pub. So even these miners added to the sense of song embodied by the country, which celebrates poetry and music at the yearly “eisteddfod” competitive festivals, like the ancient bards.

At the late Laura Ashley’s countryhouse hotel, Llangoed Hall, we listen to a male choir from a nearby town perform everything from Welsh hymns to rocking Negro spirituals. The amateur singers include former coal miners who lost their jobs when the mines were finally shut down. We experience this important aspect of Welsh history by descending into Blaenafon’s Big Pit Mine, now a museum of the South Wales mining industry.

Castles, abbeys, neolithic burial chambers, iron age forts and Celtic crosses abound in the south, and extensive ruins can be seen in the Roman garrison town of Caerleon - later the supposed court of the legendary King Arthur.

Close to Thomas Laugharne lies the medieval seaside town of Tenby, with its magnificent, expansive beaches. From here, one can walk the entire length of the wild Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, a distance of 186 miles. We traverse a small part of it, taking a dramatic and windy walk around Dinas Head near Fishguard.

The nearby National Coracle Centre in Cenarth Falls is fascinating, with its unique collection of ancient, rounded Celtic boats made of willow and animal hides, light enough to be carried on a person’s back.

Our final visits include the mauve-stone place of pilgrimage, St. David’s Cathedral, and the charming port of Fishguard to see the just-finished 100-foot-long “Last Invasion of Britain” tapestry, embroidered by 70 stitchers. The village is sponsoring almost 100 events, including an opera, for the 1997 bicentennial of the last invasion on British shores.

Even here we find memories of Dylan. The town’s scenic beauty made it the location for the imaginary, magical sea town of Llareggub during the 1971 filming of Thomas’ “Under Milk Wood,” with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

And here, too, the curlews’ cries crest over the cliffs.