In the gloaming,
When the heather’s edged with gold,
I believe there’s people there —
A festive, seasoned round:
The dancer and the dance,
The fiddler and the song —
The Eisteddfod, and me.
Celebration is a stranger to the land;
When the merry-makers laugh
It’s Ponce de Leon’s brew —
Haunting every tongue
Teasing every heart —
And cheers for everyone!
On an evening,
On a candle, set for flame,
A music-man may insist
On brightly colored tunes:
Autumn melodies,
Leaves on harvest fields,
While a leitmotiv from Wales
Outlines everyone.
Local poets,
Silly moths ‘round the lantern
Play like picnic children, here,
Away from winter-rose
And January thorns…
And the master conjures words
Like the triplet crones, boiling bridges,
Burning paths; for St. Elmo sailed this way,
A Viking, long ago.
When the rhythm and the rhyme
Run hand in hand,
Like the Captain and the Kid,
It’s time again for pillow-beasts
Who eat cottleston pie
And journey to the pole
With friends, and everyone.
It’s my season,
It’s the time life’s really for;
And a gambler’s trade, I daresay:
A twelvemonth for a day,
A vigil for a flare —
And all for Eisteddfod.
Ah, she's worth it
When the twilight comes sooner
And sooner, and when a wind,
A restless northern cry
Forces me inside
Further than the walls…
Then she sees me
Through these grey December days,
When an icy mist returns
And the moors are Death’s bleak house
And the peat brings warmth, at last,
To fingers meant for bows
And ancient varnished tones:
The Eisteddfod, and me.