Gwlad Beirdd: Dewi Emrys Gwlad Beirdd

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-"I know I lost my way

-"And wandered moors and mountains

-many times

-"But was this old pilgrim confused

-"In believing

-someone knew the way?"

-Swansea National Eisteddfod, 1926.

-The set task for the Crown.

-A selection of original poems,

-and Dewi Emrys won.

-For his poems about the highway.

-He and the road were old friends.

-He knew Pembrokeshire's lanes

-and London's busy streets.

-He'd travelled a fair bit.

-Wherever you turn in his poems,

-he's always travelling.

-The yearning for an open road

-torments you every day

-Swansea National Eisteddfod, 1926

-His record is unsurpassed

-at the National Eisteddfod.

-After winning the Crown,

-he won the Chair four times...

-..between 1929 and 1948.

-This success probably led

-to a new rule being put in place.

-No-one can now win any principal

-literary prize more than twice.

-Dewi had everything.

-He could accomplish anything.

-He could recite wonderfully.

-At competitions,

-he swept all before him.

-He was a singer

-and an eloquent preacher.

-He drew large congregations.

-But he was a restless soul

-who found life's journey difficult.

-At one time, he led a tramp's life

-on these London streets.

-He then wandered around

-the south of England and Wales.

-Plenty of people criticized him

-for losing his way.

-But Dewi Emrys spoke the truth.

-You ought not to criticize anyone

-unless you've lost the way yourself.

-"It's so easy for a land to judge

-from a white fort

-"An old boat that's crumbling

-"Let the judges form their judgement

-"Upon the sea where battles raged."

-Dewi Emrys was born in 1881.

-His father was a Congregationalist

-minister in Llandudno.

-Dewi Emrys

-says little in his work...

-..about his earliest days

-in North Wales.

-But when his father is called

-to Rhosycaerau in Pembrokeshire...

-..the family moves to Pen-caer.

-Here, the seven-year-old boy

-finds a new lease of life.

-Dewi Emrys encounters somewhere

-that will inspire him for life.

-He noted his love of this place

-many times.

-This is how he described it.

-"There were opened up for me

-the doorways of my first dreams."

-Looking around,

-it's easy to see why.

-He found his paradise outdoors.

-After school,

-he went ferreting and rock climbing.

-But even when he describes

-his childhood...

-..he mentions a cloud of distress.

-In his first attempt

-at rhymed verse...

-..he describes a woman weeping.

-It may be an early clue

-to his later muse.

-Sometimes, the storm

-does vanquish the song.

-"In the tempest, so powerless is

-the chaffinch's song in the bush."

-Dewi Emrys's father

-suffered from depression.

-This illness was perhaps

-a dreadful black cloud.

-It left a mark

-early in the poet's life.

-Certainly, in the longer term...

-..his father

-had to leave Rhosycaerau.

-The illness also forced him

-to leave the ministry.

-In the end, his parents

-were living apart.

-It was an unstable family home.

-There was poverty,

-and a realization of failure.

-The father

-went to the mental hospital.

-These black shadows affected Dewi

-for the rest of his life.

-He suffered the same mental

-health problems as his father.

-He got into difficulties, poor chap.

-On the whole, he writes longingly

-about childhood.

-He knows it's a time

-when everything ought to be good.

-He brings us to the school yard.

-This is how he puts it.

-"The glade of the first mile

-"It is childhood's heaven.

-"Leaping before seeing the way ahead

-"Playing before starting to live.

-"The world's end is the horizon

-"To the joyful little tenants

-"And neither fear nor memory climbs

-"Over the wall of this glade."

-Playing before starting to live

-After his father's illness

-had worsened...

-..Dewi Emrys and his family

-moved to Carmarthen.

-He was 19 years old.

-After a period as a cub reporter

-on the Carmarthen Journal...

-..he became a ministerial student

-at the town's Presbyterian College.

-His career as a minister

-was colourful, to say the least.

-But one thing is clear.

-As a pastor,

-he was popular with his flock.

-After spells as a minister

-in Pontypridd and Buckley...

-..Dewi came to Finsbury Park

-in London.

-He was to receive a huge salary

-of 400 a year.

-But all was not sweetness and light.

-There were problems at home.

-By this time, he and his wife,

-Cissie, had two sons.

-Cissie's two sisters

-had also come to live with them.

-Money was spent like water.

-Dewi Emrys felt

-that he had to escape.

-He left his family and his church.

-He joined the Army for a while.

-He then became a journalist

-on Fleet Street.

-But he was very short of money.

-He was being sued by his wife.

-It all led ultimately

-to poverty and hardship...

-..and living on the street.

-He didn't see the value of money.

-He would share his last penny.

-But often, he didn't have a penny.

-The record of his arrival here

-at the House of Charity, Soho...

-..is just a single word - penniless.

-My mother used to work

-for her brother in London.

-She attended chapel in London

-and recalled seeing Dewi Emrys...

-..singing outside the chapel,

-with his hat in his hand.

-It was as if he was challenging

-the establishment.

-He seemed to be saying...

-.."Here I am. This is what

-I stand for. You've rejected me."

-He was extremely critical of them.

-"I stand outside the entrances

-of all the Welsh chapels in London.

-"I offer poetry to the fattened

-men of commerce who worship God.

-"They walk right past, avoiding me.

-"They caress their hymn books,

-and enter in respectability...

-"..to worship

-their God of selfishness."

-It's quite caustic criticism!

-A nature-based religion,

-not one confined to four walls.

-That's what appeals to Dewi Emrys.

-He says that formality is a curse.

-It kills the God

-who laughs in the flowers.

-Even though he loved

-the world of nature...

-..his love for mankind

-was greater still.

-In his poem Ffos Y Clawdd,

-he chides the birds...

-..for having awoken the girl

-who lies in the gutter.

-They deny her the only form

-of escape she has - sleep.

-"Come, my fellow,

-the stars are escaping

-"The kindly night

-is departing the land

-"The blackbird blows the dew

-from its pipe of gold

-"Before awakening the fields

-with its shrill whistle

-"Before awakening the fields,

-and awakening her

-"And recalling her

-from her faraway paradise

-"If I could,

-I would insist on silence today

-"No twitter would sound

-from the bush nearby

-"Oh, come,

-the angelic smile vanished

-"And the pale maiden's

-white heaven ended

-"That foolish blackbird

-is whistling already

-"Oh, pity upon her.

-"Magdalene."

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-And he speaks of another Shepherd

-Who gave his life to save his lambs.

-Why has the poem Pwllderi...

-..always been

-such a firm favourite in Wales?

-It's hard to say.

-The dialect's pretty.

-He uses local vocabulary

-rather than familiar words.

-But the poem

-is so typical of his work.

-Even amid all this natural beauty,

-he reveals a man in a quandary.

-He talks of a shepherd and a lamb.

-He says that, ultimately,

-money doesn't count.

-He returns to that old question.

-What is value?

-What really counts?

-This is Dewi's central message.

-God is the Good Samaritan.

-He helps those who have fallen.

-The message is in Pwllderi,

-truly his greatest poem.

-Dewi himself is the lost sheep.

-He believes that God's love

-reaches and raises the fallen.

-God of the destitute.

-"Yesterday, sitting above Pwllderi

-"Where once lived eagles,

-and bears, and bogeys

-"Those haughty townspeople

-down by there

-"Have no idea it's so wild up here.

-"You stand up high

-above this dungeon

-"Looking down

-on a bottomless cauldron

-"Boiling between the greyish rocks

-"Like brimful milk churns

-or foaming suds.

-"Just thinking of it

-this very minute

-"Sends a shudder through my heart.

-"I'll never forget

-that dreadful night

-"The shipwrecked sailor

-shouting with all his might

-"Calling, calling, but no reply

-"And only seabirds to hear his cry

-"While those hawks,

-like silent devils

-"Waited for the light

-to leave his eyes."

-After the description

-of the sailor in the storm...

-..comes the image of the shepherd,

-risking his life to save his lamb.

-"You then may sit

-on an old oak settle

-"And listen to the shepherd's tale.

-"He'll talk little

-about the knock he got

-"Rescuing a lamb

-from a perilous spot

-"Far less admit

-it took rope and chain

-"To pull him back up to safety.

-"But he'll say, perhaps,

-with his voice clearly trembling

-"What sent him down

-through rocks and thorns

-"Not the lamb's market value in town

-"But its cry as it bleated

-for someone to come.

-"And he speaks of another Shepherd

-"Who gave his life

-to save his lambs.

-"And those are the things

-that come to mind

-"When you sit there above Pwllderi."

-Pwllderi was a winning entry

-at the 1926 Swansea Eisteddfod.

-That was the year

-Dewi won the Crown.

-He was in the glare

-of newspaper publicity.

-After almost a decade apart,

-his wife tracked him down.

-She demanded his prize money.

-He sold his Crown

-in a shop in the town.

-He had a very difficult period.

-Having been arrested for writing

-cheques that were dishonoured...

-..Dewi Emrys was given refuge

-in Llandovery by JD Jones.

-He loved strolling

-along the banks of the River Tywi.

-In his own words, he was

-"with the gods of the muse".

-He wrote another poem at this time.

-It was his ode

-for the 1929 Liverpool Eisteddfod.

-It would win him the first

-of his four national Chairs.

-The literary world was divided.

-There was an increasing envy

-of Dewi Emrys and his winning ways.

-Some sulked, and some condemned

-his conservative style.

-Dewi Emrys hits back,

-writing in newspaper articles.

-He labels the work produced

-by the new poets "fanciful fashion".

-He shares the people's view.

-They view the work of modern poets

-as nothing but "a glorious bluff".

-He's not one to follow fashion.

-Woe betide him whose colour

-is different from all the others!

-The critics

-held respected academic posts.

-But Dewi was a fallen man.

-He was very sensitive

-to the criticism, which hurt him.

-By 1937, he was back in London.

-He attempted to set up home

-at West Square, Elephant and Castle.

-But the Second World War intervened.

-He was in love with a young teacher

-called Dilys Cadwaladr.

-They had a child.

-It was a difficult situation

-in those days.

-The bohemian couple attempted

-to raise their daughter Dwynwen...

-..far away from the prejudice

-to be found in Wales.

-But escaping from wartime bombs

-became the priority.

-After nights spent

-in underground shelters...

-..the little girl, Dwynwen,

-was sent to her mother's relatives.

-They lived in Penmorfa,

-near Porthmadog.

-Oh! Restless little soul,

-will yearning forever be your joy?

-Within a few months,

-Dewi was invited...

-..to stay with a friend

-in Cardiganshire.

-Dilys had moved on elsewhere.

-But when Dewi acquired a cottage

-in Talgarreg, Ceredigion...

-..Dwynwen came to live

-with her father.

-Y Bwthyn, Talgarreg

-was to be Dewi's home...

-..for the rest of his life.

-It was a golden period for Dewi.

-He and Dwynwen at home,

-playing together.

-He was like a little boy.

-He'd rediscovered his childhood.

-The final part of his life

-was a very happy period.

-Here in Talgarreg,

-he not only raised Dwynwen...

-..but also, in a way,

-raised a nestful of poets.

-He ran the poetry column in Y Cymro.

-He ran the poetry column in Y Cymro.

-

-Yes, Y Babell Awen.

-All sorts of people

-sought poetic tips from him.

-Even T Llew Jones.

-Now respectable, he was accepted

-back by the Congregationalists.

-He also established

-the Fforddolion Dyfed society.

-And yet, I don't think he was

-accepted totally by everyone.

-The Last Mile

-"Sunshine and showers,

-blue skies and clouds

-"A flat mile, a steep mile

-"Then old age rears its grey head

-"Like snow lying on a bush

-"That is our career's short story

-"Before the fog envelops the ground

-"Before we leave, to exist no more

-"On the main road.

-"Beyond a green and mossy old wall

-"I can see the acre of eternal peace

-"And on a sad chapel's misty veil

-"I see the shadow of a gravestone.

-"But if your wish is for my race

-"To reach beyond the veiled dead

-"Bury me by the roadside

-"With a milestone above my head."

-That is our career's short story

-And then the end came.

-His friend Jacob Davies

-went over to Y Bwthyn.

-In a drawer, he found the couplet

-now inscribed on his gravestone.

-It suits the poet who wrote odes

-to the exile and the storm.

-Here indeed was a man

-who had experienced life's tempest.

-"Sweet sleep,

-after many disappointments

-"Silence in the wake of a storm."

-Jacob Davies

-describes the funeral very well.

-"The chapel was half full.

-"Dewi was buried, as he had lived,

-a lonely man.

-"A few relatives came,

-a few friends...

-"..and a few neighbours.

-"The self-proclaimed guardians

-of Welsh literature and culture...

-"..were too busy with other things.

-"They failed to bid farewell

-to a princely poet."

-He once described himself,

-accurately, as a choral personality.

-He was a preacher, a teacher,

-a musician and an artist...

-..as well as being a poet!

-With all that complexity,

-I don't think he ever settled...

-..after he had left Pen-caer.

-A line he penned himself

-sums him up neatly.

-"Oh! Restless little soul"

-It's echoed in the closing line

-of his famous englyn to the horizon.

-The measure of a poet

-is how his words are remembered.

-If that's the yardstick, Dewi Emrys

-was a very great poet indeed.

-Ordinary people

-will remember Dewi Emrys...

-..as a person and as a poet.

-He had a pure heart.

-He was a dear, innocent man.

-He was Dewi.

-"Behold, a mirage,

-like the rim of a wheel

-"Around us

-A true Wizard's masterpiece

-"A faraway line that isn't there

-"An old boundary that never ends."

-S4C Subtitles by Adnod Cyf.

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