Category Archives: Poetry

Let’s walk the bridge

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(With some who’ve walked with me)

Poems of Place: Barmouth Viaduct

 Let’s Walk the Bridge

First night in Hall with first night fear

You calmed the room and charmed all here

And later still when midnight chimed,

With notes compared our friendship primed.

            Let’s walk the ridge

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Together

It seems so long since we first met

But not as long as mountains yet

So many things we seemed to share

Both pilgrims with a friendship rare

            Let’s walk the ridge.

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Together

Somewhere beyond that darkened crest

Your stage is now where Quakers rest 

And sometimes lit by orange moons

We’ll speak your rhymes and sing your tunes

Let’s walk the ridge

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Together

That night with Thom and Gill and me,

The wind was strong sandblasting sea.

With ashes then we’d come to throw

You back to where the flowers grow

Let’s walk the ridge

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Forever.

Poems of Place: Afon Mawddach

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For Rob: Requiescat in pace

Wonder starts invisibly in small things.

Like gentle rain and sunshine,

Or more likely in this case, 

In wind and deluges

On the black cliffs of Dduallt

And the dismal peat moor where you begin.

Here, even the sheep seem desolate.

A trickle first, and then this toddler river runs fast

Down valleys, past Rhobell’s feet, mooches in dark tree forests,

Tiptoes across waterfalls of light,

Beside ancient stones.

Soon you make alliances with others,

Showing them good direction and how to thrive.

Coming to maturity where monks walked sheep to pasture,

You glide under bridges and flow gently

Under Pen y Cader’s watchful eye,

Until just below Penmaen, you reach your prime

And as the chrome yellow, scarlet lake and rose madder paint the precipice,

You are magnificent as you greet the sea,

And begin your constant golden dance of ebb and flow

Leaving silver shards and art in sand for us to marvel at.

Then past Rhuddalt, Lletywyn and Farchynys you grow in stature,

Inspiring all who come to meet you and who feel your all-seasoned charm.

At last, at Aberamffra where oyster catching squadrons and the Clock House

Mark the hour and your translation to the open sea,

We look towards your mountain,

And reflect upon your story,

And all the joy you store inside our hearts.

Paul Christopher Walton                            

Poetry of the Mawddach: A Lament for Lleucu Lloyd of Cymer

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Llywelyn Goch

Llewelyn Goch’s best-known poem is his lament on the death of

Lleucu Llwyd, wife to Dafydd Ddu of Cymer. 

Nid oes yng Ngwynedd heddiw

na lloer, na llewych, na liw,

er pan rodded, trwydded trwch

dan lawr dygn dyn loer degwch.

Y ferch wen o’r dderw brennol,

arfaeth ddig yw’r fau i’th ol.

Cain ei llun, cannwyll WNynedd,

cyd bych o fewn caead bedd,

f’enaid, cyfod i fyny,

egor y ddacarddor ddu,

gwrthod wely tywod hir

a gwrtheb f’wyneb, feinir.

Mae yma hoewdra hydraul

uwch dy fedd, huanwedd haul,

Wr prudd ei wyneb hebod,

Llywelyn Goch, cloch dy glod;

udfardd yn rhodio adfyd

ydwyf, gweinidog nwyf gwyd.

There is in Gwynedd today

neither moon, nor light, nor colour,

since was put, unlucky passing,

under hard earth the moon’s beauty.

O girl in your oak chest,

a bitter destiny is mine without you.

Fine of form, candle of Gwynedd,

since you are closed within the grave,

my soul, bestir yourself,

open the black earth-door,

refuse the long bed of gravel

and rise to meet me, maiden.

There is here a brief brightness

above your grave, the shining sun,

and a sad-faced man who lacks you,

Llywelyn Goch, bell of your praise.

A wailing poet in adversity

am I, serving the strength of passion.

Quoted in An Introduction to Welsh Poetry Gwyn Williams 1953

Poetry of the Mawddach

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Roger Redfern 1975

Roger Redfern is one of my favourite writers about the Mawddach estuary and the mountains he knew so well – both as the chronicler of his family’s life on a dairy farm in Cutiau, and as one of The Guardian’s leading countryside correspondents.

This poem is taken from Verses from my Country and is the equivalent of a big, steaming mug of silky hot chocolate on a chilly Autumn afternoon.

WHERE THE GORSE IS GOLD AGAIN

 A slant of winter sunlight through the naked trunks

 And on the slopes to either side

 The russet bracken flaming.

 The little trees are empty, still alive in sleep.

 My shadow, long and pale, climbs up the slope of lane

 Ahead, and on the brow it levels out.

 Behind, the sea silent with distance

 Creams on the winter shore,

 Lit by a mellow sun.

 In front, two men are walking

 With a dog before me in the hillside glow.

 No breeze rustles dead leaves

 Not a sound but silence

 Over all with her sparkling cloak

 Says, “This is my domain, an ancient natural law.”

 And up the hillside lane I go.

 Where the sweep of Llawllech drops down

 To the Mawddach glistening below,

 And washed sands and pebbles sing

 With the tide; there on the slopes

 Where ffridd melts into higher brown

 And ruggedness, the song of the curlew

 Echoes in the sun that suggests coming spring.

 Lone white and purple clusters

 Bob above the breeze-washed grass.

 Gorse is gold again and swinging gates are open wide.

 The sky, like Pacific solitude, is ranged

 W ith islands, white and mounta inous,

 Floating high. Before the sun pales more the skylark’s

 Song climbs to the unatt i inable blue.

At Ffridd Bant I look along

That lane that leads by bullrush bed

But not today to tread that way.

Instead up the hill between high banks

Past Llwyn-gloddaeth, empty as winter branches,

Onto the opening of the way, the levelling of the land.

 The whole, wide world is opened up.

 From Diphwys’s moulded top and far sheepwalks

 To cringing grass-blades at my feet –

 A splendid harmony, a charitable harmony!

 Now through the gate and down the lane,

 On the way a wave from Llwyn-onn’s doorway.

 Blue with paint; and Home again.

 Through the gateway with the swinging gate

 That squeaks and crashes to.

 Down and down with walls of hazel and thorn

 And whispering waters as I go

 On the descending way.

 I tread in Grace’s steps,

 Long now silent since she went along the road

 To live the evening days

 In the hovel at Bontddu.

 The fallen roof, the cowshed

 And the chimney stacks

 Stand, girt with shrub and leaf.

 In the shade the everlasting waters run and splash,

 Welcoming me once more.

 Returning I have come,

 And up there in the skylark’s everlasting sky,

 The sun says, “Home again. “

Poetry of the Mawddach: 1887

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Aberamffra

Canon HD Rawnsley 

IV LOW TIDE IN THE ESTUARY, BARMOUTH.

The river failed as if a wizard’s wand

Had smote it; where dark Idris mirrored lay,

 Behind his woody skirts and range of grey,

 Was unreflecting waste and wrinkled sand;

 No life, no light, but here and there a band

 Of hyacinthine blue, that stole away,

 Like to a guilty thing, toward the bay,

 And left the boats heeled helpless on the strand.

 Then from the central sea a whisper came,

 The salt white water swam as smooth as oil,

 Swept o’er the shoals of sun and flickering gold.

 Other, but inconceivably the same,

 Incessant, but without a sign of toil,

 Renewing all, the generous tide was rolled.

Sonnets Round the Coast