Black Gold poem by Dyfed Lloyd Evans
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Black Gold
Black Gold upon the hoof
Which flows from Gwalia’s shores
To far-flung continents —
Both East and South
Lands of plain and desert sand
Where Welsh-Black bulls
Are breeding now —
Yielding novel dynasties
in realms across the far-flung tides.
Continents unknown to those
Who once in long-lost ages past
Did claim this verdant Island Shelf
From whence this hardy breed was born
* * *
Sonw-shovel horns, combat-scarred
Each ridge a badge of victory
That marks the line’s continuance
Sire begetting calf… begetting calf…
Links in a helix chain
Which stretches through the veil of time
To founder-herds that roamed
The White Isle’s forest glades
Before the days of man
When wolves in winter’s deep
Lay claim to fallen beef.
Orchard days; before the hunters came
To stem the Black Gold’s spread;
Until another race of men —
Amaethon’s followers —
forged farming into Husbandry.
They reared the Ebon Kine
and birthed an industry:
Drover’s source of Silvered Palm.
Black Gold which roamed the hills,
and drank the streams of Gwalia’s vales
From long afore the Romans came —
and roam them still.
Sleek breed of Mythologic grace
Which gave the backdrop to the Tâin
As well as Math’s mysterious herd
Which rose full-formed
From Arawn’s labyrinthine deep
To roam the snow-capped peaks
Of Eagles’ realm.
They fed the halls of Gwynedd’s Lords
‘Da Du’ which link us to our past
Selected by the river-flow of time
To live and thrive on moor and hill and crag
Making milk and meat of margin land.
A hardy breed, as ancient as
The people they sustain.
Which flows from Gwalia’s shores
To far-flung continents —
Both East and South
Lands of plain and desert sand
Where Welsh-Black bulls
Are breeding now —
Yielding novel dynasties
in realms across the far-flung tides.
Continents unknown to those
Who once in long-lost ages past
Did claim this verdant Island Shelf
From whence this hardy breed was born
* * *
Sonw-shovel horns, combat-scarred
Each ridge a badge of victory
That marks the line’s continuance
Sire begetting calf… begetting calf…
Links in a helix chain
Which stretches through the veil of time
To founder-herds that roamed
The White Isle’s forest glades
Before the days of man
When wolves in winter’s deep
Lay claim to fallen beef.
Orchard days; before the hunters came
To stem the Black Gold’s spread;
Until another race of men —
Amaethon’s followers —
forged farming into Husbandry.
They reared the Ebon Kine
and birthed an industry:
Drover’s source of Silvered Palm.
Black Gold which roamed the hills,
and drank the streams of Gwalia’s vales
From long afore the Romans came —
and roam them still.
Sleek breed of Mythologic grace
Which gave the backdrop to the Tâin
As well as Math’s mysterious herd
Which rose full-formed
From Arawn’s labyrinthine deep
To roam the snow-capped peaks
Of Eagles’ realm.
They fed the halls of Gwynedd’s Lords
‘Da Du’ which link us to our past
Selected by the river-flow of time
To live and thrive on moor and hill and crag
Making milk and meat of margin land.
A hardy breed, as ancient as
The people they sustain.
Unusually (for me at least), this poem was specifically for someone else (he was president of the Welsh Black Society at the time). The black gold referred to here is the Welsh Black cow, a source of income and wealth for many a drover during the middle ages and up to the eighteenth century. The breed, however, is much older than that and in their own hardy way have seen almost all the major events that have befallen the island of Britain and they are still here to sustain us still.
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