Remember the Woods of Cynon

The poet Harri Webb (1920-1994) spent twenty years living in Cwmbach in Cynon Valley. Today we could only spare twenty minutes in this Welsh village to reflect on the man and his work.

For a few of those minutes we stopped and stared from the Cwmbach hill and looked out towards the area of land they call Tirfounder Fields. The heart is being robbed from this land as the trees are ripped from the earth for a new housing development.

Hundreds of mature trees have been removed, simplifying the local environment in preparation for man and his machines to lay the concrete, the asphalt and the other toxic materials.

Harri Webb remembers the trees and birds in his poem “The Woods of Cynon” thus :

Aberdare, Llanwynno, all

Merthyr and Llanfabon,

The worst thing ever to befall

Was cutting the woods of Cynon.

They cut down many a parlour sweet

So pleasant with the sun on,

Places where men and boys would meet

In the forest of Glyn Cynon.

If a man had to take flight

From vengeance of the alien

He’d get a lodging for the night

With the nightingales of Cynon.

Many a birch tree in green attire

(Hanged high be every Saxon)

Is heaped as fuel for the fire

By the black men of iron.

For cutting down and making bare

The wild birds’ resting place

May confusion be the share

Of the false English race.

Better should the English be

Hanged in the depths of ocean

In hell to dwell in misery

For cutting the woods of Cynon.

I heard them saying yesterday

The parish is now so dreary

All the red deer have gone away

To the black wood of Mawddwy.

Hunting the badger and the hind

And the roebuck in the dell

All that is now behind

For Cynon Woods are felled.

If a stag was in the chase

Before the huntsman running

You’d never see him slack his pace

Till he reached the woods of Cynon.

If a girl came, fairest fair,

Beside the river strolling,

Pleasant it was to met her there

Down in the woods of Cynon.

And if they seek as in old days

For wood to bridge the river

Or build a church or a dwelling place

Glyn Cynon is no giver.

In judgement I’d set up a court

Of every honest fowl

And in his robes of office there

Their hangmen be the owl.

If anybody asks who made

This cruel declaration,

It’s one who often met his maid

In the forest of Glyn Cynon.

* from the Welsh of an anonymous poet (17th century).

Harri Webb, Collected Poems. Edited by Meic Stephens (Gomer, Llandysul 1995). ISBN 1 85902 299 5