“Like great Pendragon shalt thou soar,
Who bade the din of battle roar,
What time his vengeful steel he drew
His brother’s grandeur to renew,
And vindicate his wrongs;
His gallant actions still are told
By youthful bards, by Druids old,
And grateful Cambria’s songs.”
Following in the steps of Glyndwr in Conwy. 🏴
Twelve-eighty-two, a hundred crow-miles south,
they killed Llywelyn, while kite and raven
scrawled skies over Cilmeri’s bloody earth.
The Welsh prince dead, a nation broken,
the dream of freedom lost.
Now, within these walls,
sea-light through a slit, the distant cry of gulls,
we write in an octagon tower of stone
cold as a cave. At a table we gather as one
to dream imprisonment in this bleak cell.
At the window-slit, a dove preens on the sill;
sea-bird cries are free as summer air,
as we will be, let from our prison tower,
to step out under the sun, walk on the grass,
feel the breath of seven centuries pass.
Caernarfon, Gillian Clarke
Showed a friend travelling the UK around North Wales. Stunning landscapes, food, castles and company. What more could you want.
#caernarfoncastle #wales
