Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed, <br />Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills, <br />Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud. <br />Docking mangels, chipping the green skin <br />From the yellow bones with a half-witted grin <br />Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth <br />To a stiff sea of clods that glint in the wind— <br />So are his days spent, his spittled mirth <br />Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks <br />Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week. <br />And then at night see him fixed in his chair <br />Motionless, except when he leans to gob in the fire. <br />There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind. <br />His clothes, sour with years of sweat <br />And animal contact, shock the refined, <br />But affected, sense with their stark naturalness. <br />Yet this is your prototype, who, season by season <br />Against siege of rain and the wind's attrition, <br />Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress <br />Not to be stormed, even in death's confusion. <br />Remember him, then, for he, too, is a winner of wars, <br />Enduring like a tree under the curious stars. <br /> <br /> <br />Submitted by Andrew Mayers<br /><br />Ronald Stuart Thomas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-peasant/
