Spring Song, Meirionydd
A white combustion rules these fields,
and testifies to men, and rams;
the mind of winter thaws, and yields--
Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
The high grey stone is clean of snows,
the streams come tumbling, far from dams;
the wind is green, the day's eye grows--
Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
The heart, gone light as all the ewes,
redounds with milk, and epigrams
that make no sense; except their news--
Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
In gold October, grown to size,
they'll know the hook, and hang with hams,
but March is all their enterprise--
Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
Commentary
While staying at a school in North Wales on an exchange program, I stumbled upon this poem in an old school reader. I haven’t been able to find any information about John Dressel – the name doesn’t sound Welsh, anyway – but the poem still reminds me of the lambing on the Welsh hillsides in late February and early March. The world is really “drunk with lambs” then.
Dressel maintains a fine balance between a nature poem and an ironic, sceptical poem. Nature is abundant, but man is always in the picture from the second line in the first to the second line in the fourth stanza. Seemingly a negligible detail, man is yet the most momentous influence on the life of lambs, which, I think, come across more as ignorant than innocent in this poem. The buoyant rhythm and indomitable metaphors keep this poem from being just another complaint about cruelty to animals. It is uplifting, not pessimistic.
— Stefan
Minstrels Links
Wales:
Poem #14, Prologue – Dylan Thomas
Poem #138, Fern Hill – Dylan Thomas
Poem #175, I am Taliesin – Anon. (Welsh, 13th century)
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood – Dylan Thomas
Poem #333, Gnomic Stanzas – Anon. (Welsh, 12th century)
Poem #374, Psalm Of the Valleys – Alex Pascall
Lambs, sheep and other Similar Characters:
Poem #120, The Purple Cow – Gelett Burgess
Poem #424, The Moonsheep – Christian Morgenstern
Poem #507, The Sheep-Child – James Dickey
Poem #1080, The Lama – Ogden Nash
Show 5 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Carolyn McGrath · 12 February 2004
Really liked the poem - something very Welsh in it - a glance to the morbid in the midst of joy!
(But maybe that says more about my family than anyone else!)
Had a look on the web and found a Jon Dressel who sounds like he fits the bill - “a Welsh American poet with strong Carmarthenshire links”. He has worked collaboratively with T. James Jones, “a Newcastle Emlyn born crowned bard”, to write a poem about the people of Llanelli for the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli in 1930. They have since composed two poems, one in English and another in Welsh to present to the people of Llanelli at the National Eisteddfod’s millennium visit to Llanelliin the year 2000.
Carolyn McGrath
Frank O'Shea · 12 February 2004
What a little gem! I will never eat Welsh lamb again.
Talking about lamb poems, there is also Katherine Tynan’s poem beginning “All in the April evening / April airs were abroad.” I will send it in April. And Eleanor Farjeon’s lovely “Mrs Malone.” Will send that another time.
Frank
RhondaD68 · 5 September 2006
Hey,
I was just looking up stuff on John Dressel, to try to find him. He was the Director of the Wales program for American Students in the 1980’s. He wrote poems while there, as did his son, Jon Dressel. He has a pub in St. Louis, called Dressels.
Rhonda D.
Mary Widlake · 16 May 2007
Jon Dressel was Director of American Studies at Trinity College Carmarthen, South Wales. He worked there in the 1980’s and probably beyond. He was an American who organised exchange study sabbaticals for American students at Trinity college. He had a home in Llanstephan I believe
Hazel White · 31 October 2007
I believe he spells his name “Jon” and yes, he is a Missourian who owns a Welsh pub in St. Louis. In union with T. James Jones, he wrote “Wyneb Yn Wyneb” / “Face to Face” which both Welsh and Americans should read with deep thought. It is a “meeting” of Owain Glyndwr and Robert E Lee on 18/19 September 1997. (Note that date.)
Another of their poems is “Rhubanau dur” / “Ribbons of Steel”, a story relating to the Welsh tin industry which was badly hurt by the McKinley tariff. The outcomes was a large migration of Welsh to America in search of jobs.
Hazel