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Archives for: June 2006, 16

More Cwmdonkin Silliness

by pollygarter @ Friday, Jun. 16, 2006 - 16:03:57

I was telling my lover about my friend's brilliant idea of Cwmdonkin as a naff gameshow and we suddenly though it could be the Welsh Mornington Crescent. And next thing - he was away and playing it! Of course he had to vary the rules to make them more appropriate for Swansea, but he got to Cwmdonkin despite nearly getting stuck on some obscure terrace...


 
 

And one of his lovely poems...

by pollygarter @ Friday, Jun. 16, 2006 - 00:35:02

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

From Dylan Thomas: The Poems, published by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1971
Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1956, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1971, 1977 The Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas.

More on Cwmdonkin and nothing on bizarre sexual practices...

by pollygarter @ Friday, Jun. 16, 2006 - 00:24:31

I told my friend about my piece on Cwmdonkin - he thought it also sounded like a third rate talent show on Welsh TV presented by Derek the Weatherman!
Here's a bit from Wikipedia:

As would be expected of a famous poet whose best known line is "Do not go gentle into that good night", many memorials have been constructed or converted to honor Thomas. Tourists in his home town of Swansea can visit a statue in the maritime quarter, the Dylan Thomas Theatre, and the Dylan Thomas Centre, formerly the town's guildhall. The latter is now a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and is the setting for the city's annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of his favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive. The memorial is inscribed with the closing lines from one of his best-loved poems, "Fern Hill." - "Oh I was young and easy in the mercy of his means/Time held me green and dying/Though I sang in my chains in the sea". This is inscribed on a rock in a closed-off garden within the park. Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boat House, is also a memorial.

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