Legend of Owain Glyndŵr
A castle’s made of sticks and stones
they’ll last a while for us to see
but fill a wall with a Welshman’s bones
an ye’ve got him for eternity.
His spectre beckons me to the grapevines
that grow inside the castle garden walls.
Alas, my sight I find has failed me;
his shade has cast its darkness over all.
The cloak of mediaeval stones still shrouds
the healing herbs, the physik’s living tools
that once might have restored Glyndŵr
to health, had he ailed with pustules…
Did he lie with canker, or rust with rot,
was he foul with pestilence or mildewed sick?
Was he doomed with poison from a friend -
a knife, a fang - how did he meet his end?
Reduced to a skeleton, plastered and papered,
his only option now to appear and fade
and prank aristocratic Crofts at tea,
a prince of Wales rudely mislaid.
He whispers through the gnarly vine,
‘I haven’t done with the English yet, I swear,
they’ll rue the day they put me down.’
The guerilla leader’s immortal eye despairs.
It tears, a drop rolls to the rooted earth,
which noble globe startles a passing crawler
who disdains the salty tipple offered
but nods regard to the tormented warrior.
Ancient oak and Spanish chestnut giants
split themselves, their thick arms stretch,
embracing sky to honour man that was
of royal blood who’s now a ghostly wretch.
Gashed bough and ripped branch
pierce cathedral peace with arbor yawls
to gods that spurned Glyndŵr’s love of homeland,
for the epitaph, ‘Here he lives behind these walls.’
