Welsh History

We were a people taut for war; the hills Were no harder, the thin grass Clothed them more warmly than the coarse Shirts our small bones. We fought, and were always in retreat, Like snow thawing upon the slopes Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger Never found our ultimate stand In the thick woods, declaiming verse To the sharp prompting of the harp. Our kings died, or they were slain By the old treachery at the ford. Our bards perished, driven from the halls Of nobles by the thorn and bramble. We were a people bred on legends, Warming our hands at the red past. The great were ashamed of our loose rags Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree Of blood and birth, our lean bellies And mud houses were a proof Of our ineptitude for life. We were a people wasting ourselves In fruitless battles for our masters, In lands to which we had no claim, With men for whom we felt no hatred. We were a people, and are so yet. When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs Under the table, or gnawing the bones Of a dead culture, we will arise And greet each other in a new dawn.