Aneirin and the Bards
[re: Welsh battle with the Angles in the year 606]
Aneirin wrote an elegy
To each of his dead friends
At Catraeth through their strategy
His People's history ends
When all of the Gododdin fell
Their names would not be lost
Aneirin in his verses tell
Of his People's holocaust
The Angle host behind each shield
Had withstood their attack
That firm shield wall that did not yield
Each stag fell to the pack
There Ida's line from Bamburgh Head
Established dominance
From Catraeth where the soil's soaked red
Those Angles would advance
The lonesome Bard was left to write
Gododdin's elegy
The soul survivor of that fight
A dismal destiny
So sadly then this Bard would roam
Lamenting his dead friends
And how his Briton's home was lost
The story never ends
The Briton's blood, the Briton's soil
Had been merged into one
Their children would be left to toil
As slaves to those who won
But are those Angles known by name
Those men who won that fight
Without a Bard to sing their name
They have been lost from sight
The Angles had some power then
To dominate this land
Yet Bard's words are remembered when
Old Glories turn to sand
Each elegy Aneirin wrote
Describes a long dead man
He does not rant, he does not gloat
Of chaff before a fan
For each one seems a close dear friend
And fit for sad lament
And now their fame may have no end
Bard's words do not relent
The Poet and the Bard are here
To keep the dead alive
Defeated Peoples find some cheer
Where their great deeds survive
A conquest by a stronger foe
Whose names are lost in time
Will let the future's children know
All conquests are a crime
For Peoples and their lands are one
United, blood and place
Despite all of the wrongs been done
Defeats and past disgrace
Gododdin are still in this land
As stubbornness still shows
They've mingled through time's flowing sand
As onward their line goes
At Catraeth British warriors died
The Bard has told their tale
Though widows and their orphans cried
Their blood line did not fail
The patterns in their genes are strong
Still here within this land
Despite who's right, despite who's wrong
There are new Bards at hand
Aneirin wrote of real things
All Bards should do the same
When of the past the Singer sings
Old heroes live again
by Trefor Morgan
... who is a Royal Navy veteran of the Borneo Campaign during the
Indonesian Confrontation, is retired from business, and now
writes freelance poetry, which has appeared previously in this
magazine.
