THOSE OTHERS

A gofid gwerin gyfan
Yn fy ngbri fel taerni tàn.
DEWIEMRYS

II have looked long at this land,
Trying to understand
My place in it?-why,
With each fertile country
So free of its room,
This was the cramped womb
At last took me in
From the void of unbeing.

Hate takes a long time
To grow in, and mine
Has increased from birth;
Not for the brute earth
That is strong here and clean
And plain in its meaning
As none of the books are
That tell but of the war

Of heart with head, leaving
The wild birds to sing
The best songs; I find
This hatefs for my own kind,
For men of the Welsh race
Who brood with dark face
Over their thin navel
To learn what to sell;

Yet not for them all either,
There are still those other
Castaways on a sea
Of grass, who call to me,
Clinging to their doomed farms;
Their hearts though rough are warm
And firm, and their slow wake
Through time bleeds for our sake.







"Those Others"
from Tares
You can also find this in
COLLECTED POEMS 1945-1990(J.M.Dent, 1993).


background image: mid Wales hills in 2003