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Writer's pictureSpike Woods

The green meadows of the sea. A ballad.

Gwirgeisydd stood at Ramsey’s isle, the church grass in his hand,

And placing it on Saint David’s shore, he did upon it stand;

And gazing off on the seaward side, he saw from where he stood,

Far off in the West where the Druid’s rest, the Green Spots on the Flood.


Then, taking a boat, he put to sea to find the chanted isle;

He searched to the East and he searched to the West, and sailed for many a mile,

But nowhere could he find the land, the fairy isles of grass,

And a long way away on the sungold spray, the evening came at last.


It’s once again he put to sea and once again he failed,

But on the third he took the grass all on the boat he sailed.

He stood upon the churchgrass green and prayed so faithfully

That in a while he beheld the isles, the Green Meadows of the Sea.


Oh, will you travel above the wind? No it’s too high for me;

And will you travel below the wind? No I’ll drown all in the sea.

I’ll travel in the middle wind, with the churchgrass in my hand –

For they have no power over grass nor flower in the golden Westerland.


And now he is home with the men of the foam in the land of the mighty and brave,

Where the earth and the sun have become as one in a golden watergrave.

He sleeps the sleep of the Tylwyth Teg with a twinkle in his eye,

And his spirit moves in the tangled groves of the oceans of the sky.

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