Rather virtuously I was repairing little boys’ school trousers on Sunday afternoon when I heard this on Radio 4’s Poetry Please. For a moment, it stopped me from wondering what had become of my rollercoaster rock’n’roll life.
The Birthright
We who were born
In country places,
Far from cities
And shifting faces,
We have a birthright
No man can sell,
And a secret joy
No man can tell.
For we are kindred
To lordly things,
The wild duck’s flight
And the white owl’s wings;
To pike and salmon,
To bull and horse,
The curlew’s cry
And the smell of gorse.
Pride of trees,
Swiftness of streams,
Magic of frost
Have shaped our dreams:
No baser vision
Their spirit fills
Who walk by right
On the naked hills.
— Eiluned Lewis