You, friend, listen. Credwch fi!

You, friend, listen.
Credwch fi!

You, friend, listen.
You, who are by the door,
can you hear?
I shall sing a song to the old land.
Believe me.
It is I who nurses the baby.
Is he sleeping, or else resting?
You, who are by the door,
can you hear?

Ti, gyfaill, gwrando!
Chwi, sydd wrth y drws,
a ydych yn clywed?
Mi ganaf gerdd i'r henwlad.
Credwch fi!
Myfi sy'n magu'r baban.
Ai cysgu y mae, ynteu gorffwys?
Chwi, sydd wrth y drws,
a ydych yn clywed?

______
gw2004

The first verse is written in the thin language, as the poet R S Thomas called English. The second verse is Welsh, the oldest living language in Europe.

There are one million speakers of Cymraeg, a Celtic language, in Wales, a land with less than three million souls, and they live mainly in the mountainous North of the country. "It is better to be born with poetry in your soul and music in your heart than a silver spoon in your mouth" is a pertinent Welsh proverb.

The very word Wales is an anomaly. In fact it is an untruth, for it is an English creation and it means the land of 'the foreigners'.

My poem recalls that the Celtic tribes were on British islands long before the English, the Anglo-Saxons. It tasks that the Welsh language, almost extinguished and now reborn, be carefully 'nursed'. It was shortly after WWII that the government in London attempted to outlaw the speaking and teaching of Welsh. In the end, after a lengthy struggle, it was the North Walians who prevailed.

Since 1959 Wales has been allowed to have a national flag. It is the red dragon of the Cadwaladr on a green and white Tudor background. The Tudors are the Welsh family that gave the world Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. They came from the island of Anglesey in North Wales. The Cadwaladr (or Cadwallader) are of ancient and noble Welsh stock and have provided Welsh bishops and princes.