I Have Longed To Go Away by Dylan Thomas

I Have Longed To Go Away by Dylan Thomas

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

Analysis:

“I Have Longed To Go Away” by Dylan Thomas is a very emotional poem. The first stanzas describes all the past horrors that have haunted him. “And the old terrors’ continual cry…Growing more terrible as the day.” The second stanza describes the terrors in a different sense, the narrator is afraid of leaving his or her past behind. The poem finishes with a sense that the narrator wants to commit suicide and does not care if he or she dies.

Overall, this poem is very dark and Dylan consistently repeats the line “I have longed to move away.” The repetition of this line really displays the importance of it. There are a few effective metaphors in this poem, which include: “And the ghostly echoes on paper.” This metaphor is describing the bad memories, which Dylan writes on paper. “And the thunder of calls and notes,” this metaphor describes the inner feelings calling out from inside Dylan towards his horrible past.

Dylan feels he is haunted by his home and needs to move away to rid of his terrible memories, “And the old terrors’ continual cry.” There is no constant rhyme-scheme for this poem, only for certain two consecutive lines there is a rhyming transition. “By these I would not care to die, Half convention and half lie.” This is one example of a consecutive rhyme transition between lines at the end of the poem. I thoroughly enjoyed this poem, it provided a strong and emotional message relating to a man who had been haunted by his past.