St. Winefride's Well

What drew her to that hidden vale in Clwyd

waiting to be made holy?

What drew him, Caradoc of Penarlag, to

her particular beauty?

Suggested the rape of her maidenhood?

What compelled her to run rather than lie

in submission on the soft Welsh ground?

What rage unsheathed his sword

to inflict the fatal wound through her nubile neck?

And what forced the sainted head

onto the Flintshire grass?

What dark gravity pulled the young

prince under Middle Earth?

And at the same time well upward

the once-conscious liquid into daylight?

What then inspired the praying uncle, Bueno,

to charge forth, reuniting reason and emotion

in the one body? And what regenerated Gwenfrewi

into her new life of learning and desire of God?

What moved the White Monks of Basingwerk

to spin their wool nearby her Shrine?

Or Henry Tudor's mother to beautify

the Holy Chapel over the Sacred Well?

Or compel sick pilgrims to bathe

thrice and kneel on Bueno's Stone?

And light candles of entreaty

for fifteen hundred years?

* Travis Du Priest is director of the DeKoven Foundation.

And what this day in Epiphany draws

me to bend over the quiet pool,

touch the water to my forehead, sign

the cross, and pray, likewise to be healed?

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Winter 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved