language will do. Vision According to J. Mansel Thomas, Cyril Gwynn has: “...a special niche in the history of Gower: his verses reflected the lives of the people of Gower before and during a period of fundamental changes..” Nigel Jenkins writes that Cyril Gwynn's vision is informed by an awareness of the rapid technological and demographic change in a wider world. Gwynn's view is a conservationist one. The town, in this case Swansea, is a place of "noise and riot" where "belching stacks obscure the sky." In 'My Dream', Cyril identifies this as a threat to Gower; resulting in the despoliation of the countryside and the decimation of existing relationships. Life on Gower is harmonious and the threat, in this case one of class, comes from outside the peninsula: 'Twas here I met with Squire Bob, I knew him by his voice, Although instead of his bay cob He drove a big Rolls-Royce' The conflict in his verse is between Gower people and outsiders; the outsiders' use of pompous language supports their class position and identifies their type. The down-to-earth and apparently "backward" ways of the local people offers a counterpoint. The outsider threatens to undermine local control, but local wit and wisdom win through. The underlying theme is often of an Eden-like idyll under threat: 'The folks I met in Sandy Lane, I did not know from Adam, The very road itself was changed, 'Twas faced with tarmacadam.' But the verse is balanced enough to see through the faults of the locals as well, Gower stinginess being a case in point. Gower people are seen as fallible, but honourable, and contending with nascent forces of globalisation. Influences and legacy Cyril Gwynn had a profound influence on the poet Harri Webb, whose Gower family had close ties with the Gwynn family. Speaking of this influence, Harri Webb commented: “..And he established in my mind an image of the poet as essentially social rather than a solitary character, one moreover, fortunate in his gifts, however humble, and under something of an obligation to spread them around for the pleasure of the people he belongs to, rather than to hoard them in the dark private cellars of introspection and incomprehension". However, despite critical appreciation, Cyril Gwynn always had doubts about the quality of much of his work. When J. Mansel Thomas suggested to him the possibility of the Gower Society publishing a