Wales

While Wales is not actually separate nation, but one of four countries that comprise the United Kingdom, it does have a cultural identity that is distinct from that of England. Wales also doesn’t have a national or independence day—in fact, the United Kingdom as a whole doesn’t have a national day. That being the case, the closest thing (traditionally) is St David’s day: in Ireland, the national day is St Patrick’s Day, St Patrick being the patron saint of Ireland. Analogously, St David is the patron saint of Wales. While it is not a public holiday, many people argue that it should be.

Both English and Welsh are official languages in Wales—in fact, with a nationalist revival from the early twentieth century, the Welsh language has also become a source of interest. With any luck that will continue, and it won’t die out.

Following the institution of the National Assembly for Wales in 1998, Wales has achieved a greater level of power in governing; this was amended in 2006 to give Wales powers akin to those of the Scottish Parliament.

The national poet of Wales is Dylan Thomas—there are plenty of Welsh poets writing today, as well as people translating literature from the Welsh, but I feel that the shadow of Dylan Thomas hangs over modern Welsh poetry, much as one or two figures may be prominent in the literary output of other relatively small nations. Small? Apparently around 3 million. The poem I've selected, "Light breaks where no sun shines," is widely available online.


Light breaks where no sun shines

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics dies,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.



—by Dylan Thomas