Words: Dylan Thomas
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There was a saviour
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Rarer than radium,
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Commoner than water, crueler than truth;
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Children kept from the sun
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Assembled at his tongue
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To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
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Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
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In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.
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The voice of children says
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From a lost wilderness
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There was calm to be done in his safe unrest
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When hindering man hurt
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Man, animal or bird
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We hid our fears in the murdering breath,
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Silence, silence to do, when the earth grew loud,
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In lairs and asylums of the tremendous shout.
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There was glory to hear
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In the churches of his tears,
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Under his downy arm you sighed as he struck,
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O you who could not cry
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On to the ground when a man died
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Put a tear for joy in the unearthly flood
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And laid your cheek against a cloud-formed shell:
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Now in the dark there is only yourself and myself.
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Two proud, blacked brothers cry,
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Winter-locked side by side,
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To this inhospitable hollow year,
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O we could not stir
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One lean sigh when we heard
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Greed on man beating near and fire neighbour
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But wailed and nested in the sky-blue wall
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Now break a giant tear for the little known fall.
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For the drooping of homes,
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That did not nurse our bones,
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Brave deaths of only ones but never found,
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Now see, alone in us,
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Our own true strangers' dust
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Ride through the doors of our unentered house.
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Exiled in us we arouse the soft,
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Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks.
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There Was A Saviour
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John Cale |