James Marinero
Colony Member
War Poets? We had them in Wales too. I thought I'd mention that today and quote one of the most notable works.
Hedd Wyn is 'Blessed Peace' in Welsh and is the name used by Ellis Humphrey Evans, a Welsh War Poet, killed at Passchendale in 1917. Six weeks after his death he was awarded a Bardic Chair at the Welsh National Eisteddfod. The Bards did not know that he was dead. That chair became known as The Black Chair. Subsequently he was awarded four more chairs.
Hedd Wyn had little formal education and left school at 14 to work on the family farm. Here is one of his works, poetically translated. It doesn't fully convey the 'music' of the original Welsh language version:
WAR
Why must I live in this grim age,
When, to a far horizon, God
Has ebbed away, and man, with rage,
Now wields the sceptre and the rod?
Man raised his sword, once God had gone,
To slay his brother, and the roar
Of battlefields now casts upon
Our homes the shadow of the war.
The harps to which we sang are hung,
On willow boughs, and their refrain
Drowned by the anguish of the young
Whose blood is mingled with the rain.
---
Hedd Wyn is 'Blessed Peace' in Welsh and is the name used by Ellis Humphrey Evans, a Welsh War Poet, killed at Passchendale in 1917. Six weeks after his death he was awarded a Bardic Chair at the Welsh National Eisteddfod. The Bards did not know that he was dead. That chair became known as The Black Chair. Subsequently he was awarded four more chairs.
Hedd Wyn had little formal education and left school at 14 to work on the family farm. Here is one of his works, poetically translated. It doesn't fully convey the 'music' of the original Welsh language version:
WAR
Why must I live in this grim age,
When, to a far horizon, God
Has ebbed away, and man, with rage,
Now wields the sceptre and the rod?
Man raised his sword, once God had gone,
To slay his brother, and the roar
Of battlefields now casts upon
Our homes the shadow of the war.
The harps to which we sang are hung,
On willow boughs, and their refrain
Drowned by the anguish of the young
Whose blood is mingled with the rain.
---
Last edited:
