The Contrived World
The Book of Taliesin XXVI.
From The Four Ancient Books of Wales
He was dexterous that fairly ruled over a country,
He was most generous, with most beautiful queens,
He was a violent poison of woe to his fellow-countrymen.
He broke upon Darius three times in battle.
And he will not be a dwarf shrub in the country of the plumed Darius.
Strenuous, far he conquered, the wood-pushing overtook
Alexander; in the golden fetters of woe he is imprisoned.
He was not long imprisoned; death came.
And where he had moving of armies,
No one before him was exalted,
To go to the grave, rich and prosperous, from the pleasure,
The generous Alexander took him there.
The land of Syr and Siryol, and the land of Syria,
And the land of Dinifdra, and land of Dinitra;
The land of Persia and Mersia, and the land of Canna;
And the isles of Pleth and Pletheppa;
And the state of Babilon and Agascia
Great, and the land of Galldarus, little its good.
Until the earth produced, sod was there.
And they do their wills by hunting them.
They render hostages to Europa.
And plunder the countries of the peoples of the earth.
Furiously they pierce women, they impel here,
Before the burned ones there was a devastation of modesty,
Of battles when the sorrow was mentioned.
They satisfy the ravens, they make a head of confused running,
The soldiers of the possessor of multitudes, when they are mentioned.
Nor a country to thy young men, when it is destroyed,
There will not be for thy riddance, a riddance of burthen.
From the care of the fetter and its hardship.
A hundred thousand of the army died from thirst:
False their plans with their thousands.
Was poisoned his youth before he came home.
Before this, it would have been better to have been satisfied.
To my lord land-prospering, a country glorious,
One country may the Lord, the best region connect.
May I reform, may I be satisfied. Be ‘with thee the fullness,
And as many as hear rue, be mine their unity.
May they satisfy the will of God before the clothing of the sod.