The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" is a poem by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas—the poem that "made Thomas famous." Written in 1933 (when Thomas was nineteen), it was first published in his 1934 collection 18 Poems.

Like the other poems in 18 Poems, which belong to what has been called Thomas's "womb-tomb period", it deals with "creation, both physical and poetic, and the temporal process of birth, death, and rebirth".

Influence
The poem was the inspiration for a series of paintings by Ceri Richards made between 1943 and 1945. Phrases from the poem appears in Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem "Howl" and in the title of 1976 Roger Zelazny story "The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current."