Because it's St David's day for the Welsh

[GuiltyPleasure]

Dylan Thomas

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Fern Hill

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Shirley Bassey

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Richard Burton

 

[Angeline]

R.S. Thomas (no relation to Dylan)

A Marriage

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.

***

Poetry For Supper

'Listen, now, verse should be as natural
As the small tuber that feeds on muck
And grows slowly from obtuse soil
To the white flower of immortal beauty.'

'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Said once about the long toil
That goes like blood to the poem's making?
Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
Limp as bindweed, if it break at all
Life's iron crust. Man, you must sweat
And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build
Your verse a ladder.'
'You speak as though
No sunlight ever surprised the mind
Groping on its cloudy path.'

'Sunlight's a thing that needs a window
Before it enter a dark room.
Windows don't happen.'
So two old poets,
Hunched at their beer in the low haze
Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran
Noisily by them, glib with prose.

***

Children's Song

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Emlyn Williams

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Rugby

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

R.S. Thomas (no relation to Dylan)

A Marriage

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.

***

Poetry For Supper

'Listen, now, verse should be as natural
As the small tuber that feeds on muck
And grows slowly from obtuse soil
To the white flower of immortal beauty.'

'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Said once about the long toil
That goes like blood to the poem's making?
Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
Limp as bindweed, if it break at all
Life's iron crust. Man, you must sweat
And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build
Your verse a ladder.'
'You speak as though
No sunlight ever surprised the mind
Groping on its cloudy path.'

'Sunlight's a thing that needs a window
Before it enter a dark room.
Windows don't happen.'
So two old poets,
Hunched at their beer in the low haze
Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran
Noisily by them, glib with prose.

***

Children's Song

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

These are lovely, thank you Ange, I hadn't heard of him before now.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Ali G (Borat) on Wales

 

[MadisonT]

Love your avatar

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

A walk in Wales

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Love your avatar

Thank you.

 

[Angeline]

These are lovely, thank you Ange, I hadn't heard of him before now.

Neither had I, and I wouldn't have looked if not for your thread so thank you.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Beautiful! Thank you!

But I especially love "Poetry for Supper." That is a perfect thing, that is.

bj

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Empire of the Sun (Welsh connection)

 

[tungtied2u]

My daughter's grandparent's on their mother's side are both Welsh. Several times I visited Wales, and just to listen to the Welsh talk was like listening to music.
I can still her the lilt in my older daughter's voice when she gets excited. In their honor, and that of their ancestor's I offer Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers), the Welsh National Anthem.

 

[ishtat]

Thanks Tristesse, I grew up in the Welsh border country(Gloucestershire) and can do a pretty servicable welsh accent. The sound of a Welsh voice somehow adds another dimension. The Welsh language particularly the northern dialect is so beautiful it's worth listening even if you cannot fully understand.

As an aside I have thought that if a language sounds beautiful it seems to almost produce poets from that virtue. Welsh is one example, another from far away is Farsi(Persian) which also has produced an extraordinary number of fine poets.

 

[champagne1982]

As an aside I have thought that if a language sounds beautiful it seems to almost produce poets from that virtue. Welsh is one example, another from far away is Farsi(Persian) which also has produced an extraordinary number of fine poets.

This is true. Hardly anyone, apart from the Germans, quotes love poetry in German to their suesser Geliebter.