HIRAETH

Hiraeth is a Welsh word with no precise English synonym or equivalent. I take it to means a form of spiritual desolation formed by a nostalgia for a home we never had. How life was before the fall from grace and into the realm of mortality. A pre-lapsarian sense of the beauty of the garden of Eden: a time out of time, and a place out of place.

Hedd Wyn, the shepherd poet, who wrote in Welsh explored the implications associated with Hiraeth. This form of spiritual nostalgia is not restricted to Wales or to Welsh people. I think it describes a widespread sense of spiritual homelessness and desolation common in the 21st century. 
 
Rhyfel

Gwae fi fy myw mewn oes mor ddreng
A Duw ar drai ar orwel pell;
O'i ôl mae dyn, yn deyrn a gwreng,
Yn codi ei awdurdod hell.

Pan deimlodd fyned ymaith Dduw
Cyfododd gledd i ladd ei frawd;
Mae swn yr ymladd ar ein clyw,
A'i gysgod ar fythynnod tlawd.

Mae'r hen delynau genid gynt
Ynghrog ar gangau'r helyg draw,
A gwaedd y bechgyn lond y gwynt,
A'u gwaed yn gymysg efo'r glad.
Hedd Wyn 
 
War