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<\/a><\/p>\nNot far from the Banks of Irfon<\/span><\/p>\n You see, it must have been somewhere,<\/span> But no-one knows the exact place, now, <\/span> And now the needle thrusts against the sky<\/span>
\nin this sloping field or that;<\/span>
\nwhere Dafis walked his dog today,<\/span>
\nwhose snout went snuffling <\/span>
\nin a certain broom-choked patch;<\/span>
\nwhere lovers lay last summer in the flattened sun-dried grass,<\/span>
\nor lay, for that matter, in that self-same spot<\/span>
\na hundred or so years ago;<\/span>
\nor there upon the hillside where the fat, incurious sheep<\/span>
\nchew now upon the cud.<\/span>
\nOr beneath that rooted blackthorn, succoured <\/span>
\nby the good black soil that sucked the seeping blood.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwhere the broad-axe bit into close-knit mail,<\/span>
\nwhere the long sword’s steel struck at the flesh<\/span>
\nand the whetted blades hewed thick and fast – <\/span>
\nand those alien hands tore the cross away <\/span>
\n from round his neck.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nin a chosen place that’s plain to see,<\/span>
\nin the still, the cold December air, where the chill is felt<\/span>
\nas it might have been those seven hundred years ago.<\/span>
\nAnd banners flap yet in a rising breeze as they did in that age gone by – <\/span>
\nand songs are sung and verses read<\/span>
\nfor the one who fell, nearby, somewhere,<\/span>
\n– but no-one knows exactly where – <\/span>
\nin whose living name fresh tribute is paid<\/span>
\nfrom year to passing year, from one year to the next.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n