“Sin” by D. Gwenallt Jones

The following poem is by a poet I had not known about until today: D. Gwenallt Jones, an early 20th century Welsh poet. He was raised Roman Catholic Methodist Nonconformist and flirted with Catholicism but never converted. As a young man he became a Socialist and then a Marxist during the two World Wars. Eventually he began to see the sin and self-interest that underlay every person’s actions, including the glorious worker paradise philosophy of the Communist party. He returned to the Christian faith and his mature poetry is both beautiful and faithful.

“Sin”

by D. Gwenallt Jones

When we strip off all our garments,
The cloak of respectability and academic knowledge,
The cloth of culture and the silks of learning,
How bare is the soul, the naked impurity:
The primitive mire in our makeup is revealed,
The beastly slime in our blood and bone,
The bow’s arrow held between our finger and thumb
And the barbaric rhythm in our dance.
As we wander through the ancient, primeval forest,
We glimpse through the branches a strip of Heaven,
Where the saints sing anthems of grace and faith,
The magnificat of His salvation;
So like wolves we lift our nostrils sky-wards
And howl for the Blood by which we are redeemed.