Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Grove of Broom
THE GROVE OF BROOM.
The girl of nobler loveliness
Than countess decked in golden dress,
No longer dares to give her plight
To meet the bard at dawn or night!
To the blythe moon he may not bear
The maid, whose cheeks the daylight wear—
She fears to answer to his call
At midnight, underneath yon wall—
Nor can he find a birchen bower
To screen her in the morning hour;
And thus the summer days are fleeting
Away, without the lovers meeting!
But stay! my eyes a bower behold,
Where maid and poet yet may meet,
Its branches are arrayed in gold,
Its boughs the sight in winter greet
With hues as bright, with leaves as green,
As summer scatters o’er the scene.
(To lure the maiden) from that brake,
For her a vesture I will make,
Bright as the ship of glass of yore,
That Merddin o’er the ocean bore[1];
O’er Dyved’s hills there was a veil
In ancient days[2]—(so runs the tale);
And such a canopy to me
This court, among the woods, shall be;
Where she, my heart adores, shall reign,
The princess of the fair domain.
To her, and to her poet’s eyes,
This arbour seems a paradise;
Its every branch is deftly strung
With twigs and foliage lithe and young,
And when May comes upon the trees
To paint her verdant liveries,
Gold on each thread-like sprig will glow,
To honour her who reigns below.
Green is that arbour to behold,
And on its withes thick showers of gold!
Joy to the poet and the maid,
Whose paradise is yonder shade!
Oh! flowers of noblest splendour, these
Are summer’s frost-work on the trees!
A field the lovers now possess,
With saffron o’er its verdure roll’d,
A house of passing loveliness,
A fabric of Arabia’s gold—
Bright golden tissue, glorious tent,
Of him who rules the firmament,
With roof of various colours blent!
An angel, mid the woods of May,
Embroidered it with radiance gay—
That gossamer with gold bedight—
Those fires of God—those gems of light!
’Tis sweet those magic bowers to find,
With the fair vineyards intertwined;
Amid the woods their jewels rise,
Like gleam of starlight o’er the skies—
Like golden bullion, glorious prize!
How sweet the flowers that deck that floor,
In one unbroken glory blended—
Those glittering branches hovering o’er—
Veil by an angel’s hand extended.
Oh! if my love will come, her bard
Will, with his care, her footsteps guard,
There, where no stranger dares to pry,
Beneath yon Broom’s green canopy!