A. G. Prys-Jones
Winter day
Cruelly falls the wind’s flail
On wandering beast and wayfarer:
The cold hill, winnowed and barren,
Is without sanctuary, without shelter
For homeless men benighted.
The fords are fouled, the lake frozen;
Down there now in the chill hail
And the scything blast
A gasping man, forespent, could pause
To ease his wheezing breath
By leaning on a single rigid reed.
Huge waves hurl their weight
Fiercely out of far waters
At the sheer cliffs of the long shore:
The headlands groan and shudder,
And the sorrowful, grey sky
Grows loud with lamentation.
Nothing moves in the numbed marshes
Where blue ice crackles
In the bleakness of black sedge
Which once was green and singing:
Now blown and gangrened by the bitter weather
Its voice, decayed to a dry rustle,
Rattles in withered whispers.
(Adapted from the Welsh of an anonymous 11th C. poet)
Page(s) 10
magazine list
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