The Day of Saints - Day 18, Keyna (Keyne) -revised 13/11/19

Keyna (or Keyne, or several other possibilities!)

Writing a ballad to fit the story of St Keyna has taken six hours, almost without a break, so I will just include the poem and leave comment until later!

The site of St Keyna's Well, rebuilt in 1936.

FOR KEYNA

The Wedding of the Hermitess

Was fifteen hundred years ago,

That Keyna's tale began -

A noble daughter, loving made

Gladwisa and Braghan

There born and bred in Brecon's land,

A noble child she,

Was raised to take the sacred cup

And worship reverently,

The youth began to taste the Word,

When yet not come of age,

And thirsting, drew the lively draught,

And grew by Scripture's page,

A beauteous star among her kin

And purer far than they,

She daily lowered to her knees,

For better there to pray,

She vowed that she would never take,

A man unto her bed,

And swore that she, until her death,

Would to Our Lord be wed.

And so it was, prostrated thus,

One morning, blessed, in May,

That she discerned, like springs within,

A calling to away,

T'was not to slip a suitor's grip,

for fear she'd be a bride,

The waters, spiritual, within,

Caught Keyna on their tide,

But so to find her place abroad,

Across the Severn's bound

Within in a cleft of Cornish rock,

To count it holy ground.

A humble hermit life there took,

In clothes of sympathy,

And hid away, she loved the poor,

With veiled nobility,

Attired as this, in righteousness,

A single life she led,

And served in love the Love to whom,

Her very all she'd pled,

With sick and ill in spirit, she

Was Christ-like in her care,

And likewise o'er a dying soul

She'd bow for them in prayer

To teach of God, she faithful stayed

And many there would come,

The ailing and the destitute -

She shared with them her home,

O'er years she toiled selflessly,

Bare never once withdrew,

Yet wearied in the dusk of life

An ache of questions grew,

Once, suffering, a thought she had

What will become of me?

Alone, she pondered if she'd lost,

In pledging purity.

Times melancholy mood she bore,

With scarce an outward trace,

But slower lifted eyes of love,

To each successive face,

That entered there to find the saint,

concealed in the cleft,

She gave them still to drink of God,

Well satisfied, they left.

The hermit there for many moons,

At last she fell to drought,

Thus kneeling on her granite floor,

She prayed to walk without,

A vision then, she saw, a man,

With kind and godly bearing,

By lifting hand he led her thence

Humility still wearing,

They journeyed to a wooded glade,

And shaded there, they sat

They talked of all her life had been,

Of bits of this and that.

He asked her why she'd never wed,

She cried, 'I'll never stray,

Not if the highest nobleman,

would carry me away!"

The day grew old, and ended late,

Where she, with he, conversed

The saintly Keyna, tiring, fell,

Parched with a dreadful thirst.

He said to her 'Come, rest awhile,

Lie down, o noble daughter,

Know me, and, too, the gift of God,

For I have living water.'

'Please Sir, then give', she meekly said,

And there he freely gave,

The waters spiritual, within,

As flows beyond the grave.

And Keyna, led upon on the earth

Saw near, as in a dream,

A wellspring in the glade appear

That trickled to a stream

The ground nearby was watered well,

Like Eden, it is said.

The weary one felt softly rest

a hand upon her head.

An almost echo, sweetest voice,

Spoke soft, 'I heard you pray,

And beautiful, your offering,

befits your wedding day!'

---

How then their story went is lost,

Her rest we cannot tell,

But if there, passing, parched you are,

Draw deep from that same well,

How pitiful is lifelong thirst,

Wed not to God's good plan,

Hence quenchéd be, as she born of

Gladwisa and Braghan.

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(revised 13/11/19)

The Parish Church of St Keyne (or Keyna!)