But these things also - Edward Thomas

But These Things Also

‘But these things also’ brings “to the centre of attention what has previously overlooked”, as Judy Kendall writes. Thomas explores his fascination with the unimportant in this poem and looks at the connection and merging together of Spring and Winter. Much like his other poetry, here, Thomas struggles to put his finger on precisely what he means. This is shown by his inability to separate and distinguish between the two seasons. The poem begins with the first two lines focussing on Spring, however, by following this with two lines focussing on Winter, Thomas explodes our first expectations of usual ‘spring poetry’ of bright and beautiful images. Instead, he catches the limbo between the two seasons and we are presented with the idea of the grass being ‘long dead’ and ‘greyer now’. This pessimistic tone is not what one usually connotes with springtime, but with the cold and bleak winter. By putting the images of the two seasons so close together in this stanza, Thomas reinforces his presentation of their connection. The last line of the stanza, ‘than all the winter it was’, changes the natural syntax of the words. The stress focuses of ‘it was’, emphasising what has past, which creates a sense of longing, introducing the idea that, like in ‘March’, Thomas is desperate to find ‘the key’ the last two lines of the first stanza finish with the words ‘now and ‘was’, bringing together images of the movement of time and emphasising the gap between the present and the past and importantly, Thomas’s focus on that gap. The second stanza uses inscape to look at things, which are seemingly unimportant. These things show the remains of winter, therefore connecting the seasons further. Once again, Thomas alters the syntax of the words to create a more beautified image.’ The word ‘bleached’ would usually have a much more negative connotation of fading and perhaps even the loss of hope, however By placing the word at the end of the first line and