Longing / Hiraeth - Do We/you Understand?

[clivebeca]

'Cofio’ gan Waldo Williams; 1904 / 1972 ‘Remembering’ .
Perhaps, surely, Pembrokeshire's finest Poet!

Please leave a comment.

Un funud fach cyn elo’r haul o’r wybren,

Un funud fwyn cyn delo’r hwyr i’w hynt,

I gofio am y pethau anghofiedig

Ar goll yn awr yn llwch yr amser gynt.


English / Saesneg
“One short minute before the sun goes from the sky,

One gentle minute before the night starts on its journey,

To remember the forgotten things

Lost now in the dust of times gone by.”



Mynych ym mrig yr hwyr, a mi yn unig,

Daw hiraeth am eich ‘nabod chwi bob un,

A oes a’ch deil o hyd mewn Cof a Chalon,

Hen bethau anghofiedig teulu dyn?


English / Saesneg
“Often in the evening, when I am alone,

A longing comes to know you every one;

Is there anything that can keep you still in the Heart and Memory,

The old forgotten things of the human family?”

---

pn: Perhaps difficult to translate, for example ...

‘Hiraeth’, is not simply ‘longing’, but ‘heart-felt longing’, not an insipid childish ‘homesickness’, but a mature, adult emotion of ’deep yearning’, almost unfathomable, for, in this case, ‘the old forgotten things of the human family’.
---

[clivebeca]

My own little poem, written following both the death of my Mother some 11 months ago, and a close friend:

Memories
If I recall a memory,
and you can tell me when.
Then two minds in harmony,
are helping us extend.
Memories mean everything,
Prolonging life itself.
It's often very true to say;
Two minds really are 'one way'.
---

[Butterbun]

I like your poem.

[sandyRoe]

I like both. Thank you for sharing them.

[woofgang]

"Hiraeth’, is not simply ‘longing’, but ‘heart-felt longing’, not an insipid childish ‘homesickness’, but a mature, adult emotion of ’deep yearning’, almost unfathomable,"
I kind of mind the "our word is deeper and more meaningful than your word" thing. To my mind there is nothing either childish or insipid about being homesick.

[megfitz]

As a Pembrokeshire girl who left many years ago, it expresses my feelings better than I could. Why didn't we "do" him at school? in Haverfordwest.

[clivebeca]

Don't really know why - prejudice maybe. He taught for awhile at my School, Bush Grammar, Pembroke, and lived in a flat in Neyland. FYI: He is buried in Blaenconnin Cemetery, Near Clunderwen. He was both a Pacifist and a Quaker.
Spent a lot of his life 'dan y Landsker' - Under the Landsker, [the boundary between the 2 languages of Pembs.North is Welsh / South is English] in technically English speaking Pembrokeshire, where we are known as 'The Down-belows".
Put him into Wikipedia, good article about him. Pob hwyl.