«Weariness, and disgust, underline most of the poems in his most recent collection, H'm, probably the most strangely entitled volume in English poetry. For his dramatis personae of hill-farmers and chapel deacons he here added God, a cold figure baffled by his Creation. 'It's just souring old age, I suppose. My mother used to tell my father, "Haven't you a good word to say about anyone?" And I remember this one time, he stopped and thought about it. Then he said, "No."'
But it is when he touches on traditional human preoccupations that he is at his most bleak. 'Happiness? I don't understand this matter of happiness. I find myself saying to couples when I marry them, "I hope you'll be happy." But it's too elusive and fleeting, I'm too honest to think anything remains the same.' He quoted Ceiriog, the Welsh poet. "The places where I used to play, the people there no longer know me.' Life is something that has to be endured: if there are values they are in the enduring.»
[retirado da introdução a The Man Who Went Into the West: The Life of R.S. Thomas, de Byron James, que toma por base o perfil do poeta e clérigo galês (e principal figura remissível para o último disco de David Sylvian, Manafon) feito pelo autor, 30 anos antes, para o Daily Telegraph]
