Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Echo Rock
THE ECHO ROCK.
The bard accuses the echo of having prevented him from meeting Morvyth.
Yon old bald rock and rugged stones,
That peer and totter o’er the dell,
And murmur forth unearthly tones
Like some base witch that casts a spell,
Babble more wildly after rain
Than seven-locked Merddin[1] the insane!
As that loquacious summit near
I watched for Morvyth to appear,
By those delusive tones betrayed,
Our footsteps far asunder strayed;
Like old Hu Gadarn’s oxen twain[2],
I called to her—and she to me—
But still, with wicked mimickry,
That traitor answered us again;
And to the softest tones I sighed,
He still perfidiously replied:
And thus we failed, “my golden glaive,”
To meet beside the mountain cave.
O lady, of thy voice beware!
In yonder rocky citadels
A profligate pretender dwells,
Who fabricates thy accents there.
Yon bellowing crag with trumpet’s voice,
Bare as the ramparts of the sky,
Hob-goblins in its depths rejoice,
Or dogs amid its caldrons cry.
Its tones are like the scream of pain
Of gander, by the nightmare slain,
Or the hoarse wailing of a hound
Within a stony vessel bound,
Or hag that strives with hollow sound
To terrify the country round,—
Disastrous voice, perfidious guide,
That kept me from my lady’s side!
- ↑ ‘Merddin Wyllt,’ or ‘Merddin of the seven locks,’ an ancient Welsh poet who was at times affected with madness in consequence of having killed his nephew.
- ↑ This is an allusion to an old Welsh mythological story, that a personage of the name of Hu Gadarn caused a deluge to subside by dragging a beaver out of the waters with two ‘hump-backed’ oxen.