SIR IFOR, THE POET AND THE PROPHET

In 1936 three Welsh nationalists took direct action following the controversial demolition of a site of cultural importance for Wales to establish a 'bombing school'. They entered the site and set fire to a  shed. They then waited for the police to arrive to arrest them. One of these was the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis. Following a failure by the jury at Caernarfon Crown Court to agree, the case was transferred to London and the three were imprisoned. Saunders Lewis was then dismissed from his post as a lecturer in Swansea University. In spite of a campaign within the University of Wales many of his fellow academics refused to sign a letter opposing his dismissal. The poet R Williams Parry was incensed and fired off the following sonnet.

JSL

Disgynnaist i'r grawn ar y buarth clyd o'th nen

Gan ddallu â'th liw y cywion oll a'r cywennod;

A chreaist yn nrysau'r clomendy uwch dy ben

Yr hen, hen gyffro a ddigwydd ymhlith colomennod.

Buost ffôl, O wrthodedig, ffôl; canys gwae

Aderyn heb gâr ac enaid digymar heb gefnydd;

Heb hanfod o'r un cynefin yng nghwr yr un cae -

Heb gorff o gyffelyb glai na Duw o'r un defnydd.

Ninnau barhawn i yfed yn ddoeth, weithiau de

Ac weithiau ddysg ym mhrynhawnol hedd ein stafelloedd;

Ac ar ein clyw clasurol ac ysbryd y lle

Ni thrystia na phwmp y llan na haearnbyrth celloedd.

Gan bwyll y bwytawn, o dafell i dafell betryal,

Yr academig dost.  Mwynha dithau'r grual.

Here is my translation :

From your heights you came down to the grain on the floor

Blinding with your light all the chicks and the chicklings;

Creating above your head in the dovecot doors

The twitter and flutter one expects among pigeons.

O idios - O forsaken fool; fie for the shame

Of a great, unloved bird winging its lonely way;

Hatched in a different field's corner not the same

God as ours rules over - shaped from a different clay.

As for us, we drink wisdom with cups of tea

And learned talk in the afternoon peace together;

We've an ear for the classics and a sense of place and can't see

That parish pumps or prisoners' cells could endeavour

To intrude on our taking of toast in grave squares

Of a sick academy.  Relish your prisoner's fare.

Some background to this: There is a barbed reference to afternoon tea and toast sessions held by Ifor Williams weekly at Bangor University. The word 'dost' in  "academig dost" can be read in Welsh as either meaning 'toast' or 'sick'. Williams Parry,  an occasional attender of these tea and toast afternoons, presumably includes himself among  those who comfortably sip tea while Saunders Lewis has prisoner's gruel. There is added layer of sarcastic wit here in the word "betryal". On the surface it means squares of toast. But Ifor Williams had, just a few years before, published his edition of Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi where he supplies a lengthy note on the words "bed petrual", referring to Branwen's grave, indicating that 'petryal' means square.  There are also references in the poem to the fact that Saunders Lewis was a catholic in a protestant culture and, in general, an unrepresentative representative of his people. Such is the nature and the fate of prophets.