Their faces shone under some radiance

Dylan Thomas's Their faces shone under some radiance

Dylan Thomas, one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century, is renowned for his lush, musical language and his preoccupation with themes of life, death, and the fleeting nature of human experience. His poem "Their faces shone under some radiance" is a poignant meditation on transience, love, and the ephemeral nature of beauty. Though brief, the poem is dense with imagery, symbolism, and emotional resonance, encapsulating Thomas’s characteristic interplay between light and darkness, vitality and decay. This analysis will explore the poem’s historical and literary context, its use of literary devices, its central themes, and its emotional impact, demonstrating how Thomas crafts a moment of fleeting radiance only to underscore its inevitable dissolution.

Historical and Biographical Context

To fully appreciate the poem, it is essential to situate it within Thomas’s broader body of work and the socio-cultural milieu of mid-20th-century Britain. Thomas wrote during a period of immense upheaval—World War II had left Europe scarred, and the post-war era was marked by existential anxiety and a search for meaning. Thomas himself was deeply influenced by Romantic and modernist traditions, blending the former’s emphasis on emotion and nature with the latter’s fragmented, often disillusioned worldview.

Biographically, Thomas was known for his tumultuous personal life—his heavy drinking, financial struggles, and turbulent relationships often seeped into his poetry. While "Their faces shone under some radiance" does not explicitly reference his own life, its depiction of love as both luminous and transient may reflect his own experiences with fleeting passion and inevitable disillusionment. The poem’s setting—a moment of beauty under moonlight, quickly overtaken by rain and the return of grim reality—mirrors Thomas’s broader poetic preoccupation with the tension between ecstasy and despair.

Literary Devices and Imagery

Thomas’s mastery of imagery is on full display in this poem. The opening lines—

"Their faces shone under some radiance / Of mingled moonlight and lamplight"—

immediately establish a scene of enchantment, where natural and artificial light converge to create a temporary glow. This radiance is transformative, turning "empty kisses into meaning" and elevating "the island of such penny love / Into a costly country." Here, Thomas employs metaphor to suggest that love, however cheap or transient, can momentarily become something profound and valuable. The juxtaposition of "penny love" (suggesting something trivial or inexpensive) with "costly country" (evoking richness and worth) underscores the poem’s central tension between the ephemeral and the eternal.

The imagery of graves and skeletons further deepens the poem’s meditation on mortality. The line "(And skeletons had sap)" is particularly striking—sap, a symbol of life and vitality, is grotesquely attributed to skeletons, implying a momentary resurrection or illusion of life. This paradoxical image reinforces the theme of fleeting vitality, where even the dead seem briefly animated before the illusion fades.

The shift in the poem’s tone is marked by the intrusion of rain—

"the midnight rain / Hung pointed in the wind,"—

a line that conveys both suspension and impending descent. The rain’s "pointed" quality suggests something sharp, almost weaponized, foreshadowing the dissolution of the lovers’ radiance. The moon’s shift—

"Before the moon shifted and the sap ran out"—

signals the end of enchantment, returning the lovers to their mundane reality:

"She, in her cheap frock, saying some cheap thing, / And he replying, / Not knowing radiance came and passed."

The repetition of "cheap" reinforces the degradation of the moment, contrasting sharply with the earlier imagery of richness and warmth. The final line—

"The suicides parade again, now ripe for dying."—

is hauntingly ambiguous. It could suggest that the lovers, now stripped of their momentary radiance, are metaphorically "ripe for dying," or it may imply a broader commentary on human despair, where the loss of beauty makes life unbearable.

Themes: Transience, Illusion, and the Cost of Beauty

At its core, the poem grapples with the fleeting nature of beauty and love. The radiance that illuminates the lovers’ faces is temporary, a trick of light that imbues their interaction with false significance. Thomas suggests that human beings often mistake such fleeting moments for enduring truth—

"Not knowing radiance came and passed."

This ignorance is both tragic and merciful; the lovers are spared the pain of recognizing the transience of their joy, yet they are also condemned to repeat hollow interactions, never grasping the deeper meaning that briefly touched them.

The poem also explores the idea of illusion versus reality. The "mingled moonlight and lamplight" creates a deceptive glow, transforming "empty kisses into meaning." This illusion is powerful enough to make graves seem like "wells of warmth" and skeletons seem alive—yet it is ultimately unsustainable. The moon shifts, the sap runs out, and the lovers return to their "cheap" existence. Thomas seems to ask whether such illusions, however fleeting, are necessary to endure life’s inherent bleakness.

Emotional Impact and Philosophical Underpinnings

The emotional weight of the poem lies in its abrupt transition from luminosity to desolation. The initial lines evoke a sense of wonder, almost a magical realism where love briefly conquers death. But this is swiftly undercut by the realization that the radiance was never permanent—merely a trick of light and perception. The final image of "suicides parade again, now ripe for dying" is chilling, suggesting that without such fleeting moments of beauty, life becomes unbearable.

Philosophically, the poem aligns with existentialist thought—the idea that meaning is not inherent but constructed, often through transient experiences. Thomas does not offer consolation; rather, he underscores the fragility of human attempts to find significance in a world indifferent to our desires.

Comparative Readings and Conclusion

This poem resonates with other works in Thomas’s oeuvre, particularly "Fern Hill" (which laments the loss of childhood innocence) and "Do not go gentle into that good night" (which rages against mortality). Like these poems, "Their faces shone under some radiance" captures the tension between vitality and decay, beauty and ruin.

In conclusion, Dylan Thomas’s poem is a masterful exploration of the ephemeral nature of human experience. Through rich imagery, paradox, and a haunting shift in tone, he captures a moment of fleeting beauty and its inevitable dissolution. The poem serves as a poignant reminder of the illusions we cling to—and the despair that follows when they fade. Yet, even in its bleakness, there is a kind of reverence for those rare moments when light, however briefly, transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.