Mae Odyssey Cymraeg
In the time before time,
In the days before dark,
The children were born,
Engraved by Heaven’s mark.
They fell from the skies,
They collided with the stars,
They formed a union undefeatable,
They became the invincible Czars.
And so they were established,
The countries evolved,
The darkness had receded,
The Earth’s fight was absolved.
Like their mother’s before them,
They rose to their true potential,
Inhabited by the children they adored,
Who proudly bore their credentials.
Suffocated by sea and land,
Surrounded by brother’s of three,
Wales burst into ignorance’s consciousness,
But fortune was soon to realise his war torn army.
And so it began,
Invasion after invasion of a truly barbaric kind,
But Wales fought brave and true,
For their patriotic pride shined.
They stood proud and tall,
Dragons in their hearts, leeks on their chest,
And swords in their hands,
In the final almighty test.
Where the Romans failed,
The English tried again,
For two hundred years,
With wave after wave of experienced swordsmen.
But inevitably the English prevail,
And they conquered the land and people,
Despite the tribes travail
But the Welsh never abandoned hiraeth.
They took away the language,
The land and the coal,
They tried to change the history,
And tried to break the rebellious soul.
They flooded the valleys,
They exploited their miners,
But singing saved the language,
And the Rebecca Riots brought out the shiners.
It also brought a cultural divide,
The sea-facing South industrialised,
With great ships from afar,
But the craggy North stayed ruralised.
The struggle for religion birthed Chapel from Church,
Great hymns and arias winged through the planet
They became surprisingly tolerant unlike those around them,
There was no hatred in the pulpit.
And then came the sports team,
One which turned men into legends,
The Second Golden Age,
This made the men’s names worth more than diamonds.
Through the oppression it brought out an identity,
A Welsh Revolution if you like,
It brought Wales to the world wide stage,
And they certainly weren’t about to give up the fight.
But that infallible backbone seemed to disappear,
As other countries now took centre stage,
Wales merged into the background,
Once again they seemed to be caught in the English cage.
Independence was finally granted,
And their country was finally once again theirs,
The language lost to generations was finally returning,
The damage was done but now was not the time for tears.
Like an animal licking its wounds,
They carried on,
Determined to rebuild the country they once were,
But that begs the question…
Who were we really?
Our spirit and fight came from defending our country,
Our glory came from winning the gruelling fights,
But that is long forgotten in the mists of history.
The question is now…
What does it mean to be Welsh?
In the days before dark,
The children were born,
Engraved by Heaven’s mark.
They fell from the skies,
They collided with the stars,
They formed a union undefeatable,
They became the invincible Czars.
And so they were established,
The countries evolved,
The darkness had receded,
The Earth’s fight was absolved.
Like their mother’s before them,
They rose to their true potential,
Inhabited by the children they adored,
Who proudly bore their credentials.
Suffocated by sea and land,
Surrounded by brother’s of three,
Wales burst into ignorance’s consciousness,
But fortune was soon to realise his war torn army.
And so it began,
Invasion after invasion of a truly barbaric kind,
But Wales fought brave and true,
For their patriotic pride shined.
They stood proud and tall,
Dragons in their hearts, leeks on their chest,
And swords in their hands,
In the final almighty test.
Where the Romans failed,
The English tried again,
For two hundred years,
With wave after wave of experienced swordsmen.
But inevitably the English prevail,
And they conquered the land and people,
Despite the tribes travail
But the Welsh never abandoned hiraeth.
They took away the language,
The land and the coal,
They tried to change the history,
And tried to break the rebellious soul.
They flooded the valleys,
They exploited their miners,
But singing saved the language,
And the Rebecca Riots brought out the shiners.
It also brought a cultural divide,
The sea-facing South industrialised,
With great ships from afar,
But the craggy North stayed ruralised.
The struggle for religion birthed Chapel from Church,
Great hymns and arias winged through the planet
They became surprisingly tolerant unlike those around them,
There was no hatred in the pulpit.
And then came the sports team,
One which turned men into legends,
The Second Golden Age,
This made the men’s names worth more than diamonds.
Through the oppression it brought out an identity,
A Welsh Revolution if you like,
It brought Wales to the world wide stage,
And they certainly weren’t about to give up the fight.
But that infallible backbone seemed to disappear,
As other countries now took centre stage,
Wales merged into the background,
Once again they seemed to be caught in the English cage.
Independence was finally granted,
And their country was finally once again theirs,
The language lost to generations was finally returning,
The damage was done but now was not the time for tears.
Like an animal licking its wounds,
They carried on,
Determined to rebuild the country they once were,
But that begs the question…
Who were we really?
Our spirit and fight came from defending our country,
Our glory came from winning the gruelling fights,
But that is long forgotten in the mists of history.
The question is now…
What does it mean to be Welsh?