ambiguous reversal of Dylan Thomas's "In Country Sleep", The

The ending is appropriately conditional, given the above line of reasoning, for she is told that only if she believes and fears that the Thief will come shall she wake

...from country sleep, this dawn and each first dawn, Your faith as deathless as the outcry of the ruled sun. (110-111)

These closing lines (with the overlong 14 syllable line 110 calling special attention to itself) emphasize undying faith and spiritual rebirth, but with an ironic twist. The "ruled sun," which contrasts with the "lawless sun" of the penultimate stanza, may be the sun of scientific fact, against whose quantifications the imagination revolts.(15) But it is also almost certainly a serious, punning reference to the son of God, who was "ruled" in the sense that he submitted to his father's will by accepting crucifixion for the sake of humanity, but who cried out from the cross the "deathless" words recorded in the New Testament, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" This implied evocation of Christ's human outcry against suffering challenges any conventional notions of blind faith and obedience. Ironically it stresses the absolute importance of challenging even an omnipotent parental authority if it appears to compromise the integrity of the heart--a powerful message with which to conclude a monologue ostensibly about a father-daughter relationship.

"In Country Sleep" effectively fits Thomas's description of the In Country Heaven poems as the "tellings," all through the long night, of what the "heavenly hedgerow-men, once of Earth" remember in their "Edenie hearts": "places, fears, loves, exultation, misery, animal joy, ignorance and mysteries, all we know and do not know" ("Three Poems" 179). It is a satisfying, meaningfully ambiguous reenactment of the deep-seated psychological tensions between a father-husband and his daughter-wife, the resolution of which, however tentative, supports the autonomy of the beautiful, high-spirited sleeper. The sleep of the title is a metaphor for the power of the imagination, which is unlocked by dreams and fairy tales and myths. It holds the "heart's truth" that Thomas prays at the end of "Poem in October" will continue to inspire him on his next birthday. Thomas sees it as a solution to the fact-bound, hard-realities of modern life, that can numb the sensibilities. This magical sleep has the power to make the sleeper happy and whole, like the fully awakened Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, or the heroines of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest. This is the father's holy wish for the charmed dreamer as she wakes.

1 His daughter Aeronwy, who was four at the time the poem was written, has I believe given well-received public readings of "In Country Sleep" in America. The poem's appeal is in considerable measure due to the special father-daughter bond it reflects and that Thomas must have actually had at some level with his daughter. Recently the writer Norman Zerold told me that while attending the University of Iowa in the early 1950s he talked with Thomas, who had arrived early for a Sunday morning poetry reading. When he asked him how he was able cope with such a heavy travel schedule, Thomas answered that his family in Laugharne "made it all worth while," and he mentioned Aeronwy in particular.