Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Dream
THE DREAM.
The bard is visited by a terrific vision. He awakes, and deplores Morvyth’s marriage with Hunchback.
As yester eve I journey’d late,
To shun the edged and naked blast,
Amid the fern my limbs I cast,
And as I lay it was my fate
(The earth my couch, the grove my bower,)
To fall asleep—I slept an hour.
And there I saw a dream of fear:
Sudden my place of slumber near
A pallid flood appears to quiver,
And rolling on to threat me seems
With billows mighty as the streams
That rise in Taf’s o’erflooded river;
Like bulls, in fury and in might,
The breakers seem intent to mite;
Out from a hundred glens they speed;
Then was I desolate indeed!
Into the billows rough and wild
I fell, with many a frantic call—
Hoar-headed billows steeply piled—
Alas! it was a dreadful fall!
And with the breakers fierce and strong
I buffetted and struggled long;
And oft I prayed to Christ to save
And give me strength against the wave.
But ceaseless struggles robbed at length
My heart of hope, my limbs of strength;
My breast the rocks of ocean tore,
And ocean’s host of billows hoar.
I saw the day-light disappear,
And night with hideous gloom draw near;
The wind with loud and wrathful shout
Waged battle with the deluge stout.
I rode upon the billow’s breast,
Until at last, by waves oppressed,
I sunk as evening closed around,
And death amid the darkness found.
At dawn awaking from the pain
And terror that had racked my brain,
With mournful heart I learned too well
The meaning of that dream to spell.
Long years a constant suit I’ve paid
To Morvyth, the ungrateful maid[1].
*****
Oh! I could read the vision well!
Her kindred heartless hostile men,
These are the floods that on me fell
From every hill and hollow glen;
These are the waves I had to fight
In that dread vision of the night!
And still, fantastic fool! I tread
Too deep, too deep, as in the dream;
A weight of waters o’er my head,
Still strive to swim against the stream!
Again I’ll plunge—but not in sleep—
For ever in Taf’s billows deep!
- ↑ A number of lines containing a mere repetition of his grievances are here omitted.