Fy Cymru, Gwlad y Gân

Hello! I'm back once again and after a week of being without WiFi, my blog is about to get loaded with posts. That's a slight exaggeration but we're going for at least two or three. :) So the past week has been spent in different parts of Wales and England. This post focuses mainly on my feeling for Wales (via poetry) but I also visited the Roman Baths and the Jane Austen Museum in Bath, England, and St. Briavels Castle (the second most haunted castle in England), as well as Lulworth Cove. I'll tell you more about the cove in the next post. 

So just to start out with some pictures here are three entirely different captured moments of the week. The first is a beautiful piece of countryside in England as we hiked six miles to William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. 

The second is me on a travelator in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. It's just like an escalator but with no steps! It's just a huge ramp and it's super cool. :) I'm not going to lie, Paige, Hannah, and I played on it, running up and down like we were five. Good times :) Also, Merthyr Tydfil was actually originally a mining town which I thought was cool. 

And finally, this last one is of the Roman Baths. Lining the terrace are statues of the Roman Emperors, including Hadrian (built Hadrian's Wall to keep out the "savage" celts), Julius Caesar, and Constantine. The water, now green, became so after the disintegration of the roof. The water flows from a natural spring and the Bath though great becomes even more significant in that it is also the Temple of Sulis Minerva. Sulis, a goddess of the natives became merged with the Roman Goddess Minerva after the Romans arrived. She is a goddess of wisdom and healing which seems appropriate due to the Bath's reputation of having restorative powers. What I found most impressive was that the pool is still intact. Though green the water is kept in the pool because it remains watertight, after almost 2,000 years, because of the immense craftsmanship of the lead workers who lined the pool. 

Anyway, I'm still working on the second half of my current essay so here's some light projects of mine in the meantime. Many of my ancestors on my mother's side are from Wales so I felt especially akin to the area so here is a poem I wrote about Wales. 

p.s. the translation and pronunciation are at the bottom. :)

Fy Cymru, Gwlad y Gân

The fairyland, thy place lies amongst purple flowers,

Which hover as wings along the mossy hills.

I tread lightly. My boots which carried me through Britain

Now contrast their dark and supple leather against the picturesque dell.

The mists which coast the Brecon Beacons 

And lay among enchanted tangled trees, 

All create this calm array of color 

Which glisten as the raindrops quietly cling 

To the petals of each tiny fairy flower, 

Or the pebbles which sink beneath my boots, 

As I glide along the pathway of the fairies 

And drink from the beauty of the view. 

The scene which looks just like a picture, 

Oil-painted, in yellow, purple, green, 

Or the smoke as it rises from a chimney 

Hidden beneath the treetops of these woods. 

The forest standing tall in strict formation, 

As I gaze out for miles and miles ahead 

Seem to sing out a long forgotten love song 

In remembrance of their resting sacred dead. 

What moves me in these tiny purple flowers, 

Which float above the grasses and the dew? 

Or the flocks which dot the lingering hillsides 

And graze upon the fairyland in Cymru? 

Oh move amongst thy sheep oh gentle Shepherd 

And tell me were you once my distant kin? 

And did you sing the strains of a sad Welsh love song, 

With the fairies as your only accompaniment? 

May it be that a home which never having seen,

Pulls the ties of my heart from this place?

Will the sweet songs of small purple flowers,

Keep my soul in their immortal, fairy'ed space?

Though I go I will ever wish to wander,

Ore the hills that I tread and nurtured long.

From this land to a love that's even dearer,

Unto the West, I will take with me this song.

May I float among the tops of the forest,

Oh, Cymru.

May I glide with the mist and the rain,

Gwlad y Gân.

And find rest in the fairy'ed, purple flowers,

Fy Cymru.

Home to me, Gwlad y Gân, Fy Cymru.

*Welsh Pronunciations and Translations

     Fy Cymru: V-ee Come-ree

     Gwlad y Gân: goo-thlad uh gahn

     Fy Cymru, Gwlad y Gân: My Wales, the land of song

-Natalie Cherie