Celtic Days

In darkened days, long swallowed

by the ever hungry jaws of time,

the ancestors of our clans

fought endless wars and battles

with enemies of our faith and clime.

They won, and lost, and won again

in everlasting struggle for the truth,

and for the rights and lives of people,

entrusted to their care, from seasoned

warriors to the flowers of their youth.

For centuries the thunders rolled

across the island and her fields and hills,

the shades of green and brownish rocks

were often stained with bright red spots

of blood a fighting army always spills.

And then Peace ruled again, with joy,

with poems, music, songs and dances,

with lavish feasts and drinking wine,

while mighty fires burned above the glade

all night for happy people's glances.

They plowed fields and milked their cows,

each day to serve their Gods and Masters;

worked and played, and loved and laughed;

they fought and died, when asked to do,

and overcame their famines and disasters.

Those days of Celtic strive and bliss

have long now gone to where we all will go,

but still their memories keep living on

in hearts and minds, in lore and stories

that we tell when open winter fires glow.

They give us spirit to survive with honour,

to make ends meet without too many frowns,

fight swordless battles of the modern times

and win the plastic trophies now on offer

in place of silver rings and golden crowns.

Where once the groves of oak and ash

stood proudly, to honour Gods and give

great pleasure to the Druids' hearts,

a motorway leads to industrial estates,

telling a tale of loss, but lets us live.

Few people now are sure where they are

going and what life has for them to bear,

but Celtic souls are souls of heroes

who love and fight, and drink and play,

and will survive the shame and snare

laid out by heartless foreign hunters,

employed by faceless men of greed.

The ancestors might long be dead now,

but we still live, to honour Nature,

to fight the darkness, and - succeed.

By Francis de Roëlman