Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RED VALLEY, by ARTHUR GLYN PRYS-JONES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RED VALLEY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: To-day I saw a ploughman go
Last Line: We keep their sacrament with bread.
Subject(s): Death; Wales; Dead, The; Welshmen; Welshwomen


I

TO-DAY I saw a ploughman go
About the margin of the hill
Where wearily since long ago
Those other ploughmen slumber still—

Who rose to make a craven King
And left their bodies in the dust
When renegade and underling
Had maimed their faith and marred their trust—

And doomed with devilry and lie
The valour of their simple word,
Making their fledgling mutiny
A banquet for a brawler's sword.

II

Slow, lowly hearts to white-heat blown!
How could this shabby legion tell
Of fields no husbandmen had sown—
More fallow than the fields of hell?

Trapped, helpless, laughed to bitter scorn
They kept a troth that cannot die,
Of these yon forest oaks are born—
And their enduring litany

Springs from the grass, from bladed wheat,
From all green things that lift their head
In springtide faith: yea—when we eat
We keep their sacrament with bread.





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