WELSH LANDSCAPE
To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers * a play on this homophonic word
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least not in Wales.
There is the language for instance,
The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night
As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows, *lexical field of warfare
Hushed at the fields' corners.
There is no present in Wales, * its history overshadows the present
And no future; and its future
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts; * a reference to Welsh folklore
Mouldering quarries and mines; *symbolic of hardship
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song.
The speaker evokes the strong sense of history attached to
Wales; a small country that had endured both in the sense of
suffering and surviving. The landscape of Wales is a testament to
such suffering and survival. The title leads us to expect an
To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers * a play on this homophonic word
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least not in Wales.
There is the language for instance,
The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night
As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows, *lexical field of warfare
Hushed at the fields' corners.
There is no present in Wales, * its history overshadows the present
And no future; and its future
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts; * a reference to Welsh folklore
Mouldering quarries and mines; *symbolic of hardship
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song.
The speaker evokes the strong sense of history attached to
Wales; a small country that had endured both in the sense of
suffering and surviving. The landscape of Wales is a testament to
such suffering and survival. The title leads us to expect an
