I ago Prytherch his name, though, be allowed,
Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hill
Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud.
Docking mangel chipping the green skin
From the yellow bones with a half-witted grin
Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth
To a stiff sea of clods that glint in the wind--
So are his days spent, his spittled mirth
Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks
Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week.
And then at night see him fixed in his chair
Motionless except when he leans to gob in the fire.
There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind.
His clothe sour with years of sweat
And animal contact, shock the refined,
But affected, sense with their stark naturalness.
Yet this is your prototype, who season by season
Against siege of rain and the wind’s attrition,
Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress
Not to be stormed even in death’s confusion.
Remember him then, for he, too, is a winner of wars
Enduring like a tree under the curious stars.