The first day of Meteorological Spring, and the sun has been sighted here in Lichfield, though it seems to have disappeared again now. It is also Chopin's birthday (born 1810) – and St David's Day. To mark the last of these, here is a poem by R.S. Thomas – one that requires a word of explanation. First, the title: Llanddewi-Brefi, long before it found fame as the home of Little Britain's 'only gay in the village', was the scene of a sixth-century synod, at which the Welsh saints and bishops (pretty much the same thing in those days) gathered, and various miracles were performed, some of them by St David (Dewi). While he was preaching at the synod, the ground mysteriously rose under him, elevating him to a position from which he could be heard and seen by the large crowd that had gathered. It is this miracle that Thomas is recalling in his poem, which begins with a surprising echo of 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' –
Llanddewi-Brefi
One day this summer I will go to Llanddewi,
And buy a cottage and stand at the door
In the long evenings, watching the moor
Where the sheep pasture and the shadows fall
Thick as swathes under the sun's blade.
And there I will see somewhere beyond the wall
Of the old church the moles lifting the ground,
And think of the saint's cunning and how he stood
Preaching to the people from his secret mound,
A head's breadth above them, and they silent around.
