Taliesin at PwIldu
Through leaning boughs I see the veil of heaven, Through leaf-ears fluted from ancestral playing To inward darkness, to the windblown tree, Marvel of time, caught in a living cell,
Daphne enshrined, in this pure moment given To air, all leaves!
I look, and hear them saying: 'In boundless light only the bound are free'; And music flows through me as through a shell.
Clear is the shell upon these watery sands And, washed with light, leaves break in these • dark woods.
Streams dance and glitter, and the rocks have veins.
My Master from the rainbow on the sea Launched my round bark. Through darkness, trailing hands, I drifted. Wave-gnarled images of gods Floated upon the whale-backed water-plains.
I looked; creation rose, upheld by Three.
And there are three about me where I stand. Ah secret place within the source of tears Caught by stream's light, uniting all that's gone: Pure stream, by pebbles masked and changing skies, I touch you; then I know my native land.
Pride cast the pattern from primaeval years, The avenger's knives in glacier-driven stone Changed by God's peace, transfixed where morn- ing flies. VERNON WATKINS
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