Dylan - Abse

Dylan is a poem by Abse where he looks up to his hero Dylan Thomas and idealises the idea of Dylan himself. Abse seems to 'unveil his eyeless staring head' this suggests a rather unnatural look to Dylan that he may not belong on this world. Abse also comments about 'A heard silence. A stone dropped down a well'. This could connote the idea of the shock from Abse from seeing Dylan, it's as if the rest of the world has stopped for this moment. This could also further reinforce that Dylan isn't actually meant to be there, maybe he is a ghost, or an idealised vision of Dylan that Abse seems to be having.

Within stanza two Abse is furthermore complimentary of Dylan as a poet. Abse comments on 'his lust for the arson of the word'. This suggests that as a poet Dylan used words like a fire, as if his poetry was uncountable but creative at the same time. Dylan's life is described as 'impecunious' suggesting he was rather poor and his life also 'slipped from a cupped hand'. It seems as though Abse is sad about this because if the water in this case is a metaphor for life it slipped from a cupped hand and this is rather hard to do if the hand is cupped. This gets to the idea that Dylan shouldn't of died so young and that maybe it was preventable. We get a further representation that fame may of overcome Dylan and it was just to much for him to handle through the quote 'Fame advanced spotlight'. We see that fame is personified in the last stanza and says 'Dilly, Dilly come and be killed' in this case fame is represented negatively as Abse believes this is what killed Dylan. This suggests that Abse views fame negatively and doesn't intend to go down its path in his life.

This poem has close links with the Larkin poem For Sydney Bechet because in both poems Larkin and Abse remember and respect a memorable person that they look up to in life.