anonymous

It was as I was scrubbing
Under Cardigan bridge there
A beetle of gold my hand's share
And my true love's shirt grubby,
On horseback came a man to me
Shouldered wide, proud,swift, he
Enquired if I might sell
The shirt of the laddie I loved so well.
I declined, saying not for hundreds, to give hence,
Not even if the hills packed full of sheep and rams
Not even if the bales of hay were pulled away
By oxen full of power to cart away on such a day
Everything I held dear. Or if in cathedral
Of Dewi Sant, even then would I that thing I scrubbed well
Not for herb sweetened or distilled for fragrant smell,sell.
Not for any offer would I thus part
From the shirt of the lad that holds fast my heart

Dewi Sant=St David

my adaptation of an anonymous poem from the Welsh . fourteenth century poem I think...can be found in 'Canu Rhydd Cynnar' by t.h. parry williams published in 1932.