JOHN PRICE ‘BEULAH’
Between heaven and earth
John Price, there, was a blackbird before rain,
a song thrush in the evening.
He kept to small lanes
and taught others his delight
at the end of a hard day.
Carpenter, son of a carpenter,
between the rolling roads and rising views,
between Llangammarch and Beulah,
he measured with a clear eye
the mortice and tenon of his rhymes,
turning the tune, tapping home the notes.
His voice heard mellifluous
by the hills and rivers,
by the gathered singing poor,
by maid and shepherd,
by schoolchildren and labourers.
To sing in chains
is to watch the chains
dissolve.
—
John Price ‘Beulah’ was born in Llangammarch. He learned his music from a couple of skilled local music teachers, particularly the ‘sol fa’ systems of notating music. Apart from a couple of years in America, where quite a lot of his music was published, he spent his life as an estate carpenter, teaching music and local choirs around the Irfon valley in his spare time. He was a prolific and influential hymn writer in the early 20th century, and also wrote many popular songs. His work did much to promote local choirs, so central to the characher of Welsh rural life.
simonhlilly 