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