The Birthright

Another long day today, but I just thought I would share this poem. 

I came across it while I was packing, in a folder of papers that had come from the time before I left my home town for University, when I was still working in my first job as a Postwoman for Royal Mail.

I don't remember doing so, but I had written it out by hand on a piece of paper. I often used to do this when I was younger, if I particularly liked a poem or quote. Having no memory of this poem, I got to read it freshly again and experience it as if for the first time. Tastes can change as you grow through life, but I think that if I still carefully wrote out poems I liked, then I would still write this one :)

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  

Gorse, Pembrokeshire 2012 - I do love the smell!