Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Holly Grove
THE HOLLY GROVE.
Sweet holly grove, that soarest
A woodland fort, an armed bower!
In front of all the forest
Thy coral-loaded branches tower.
Thou shrine of love, whose depth defies
The axe—the tempest of the skies;
Whose boughs in winter's frost display
The brilliant livery of May!
Grove from the precipice suspended,
Like pillars of some holy fane;
With notes amid thy branches blended,
Like the deep organ’s solemn strain.
******
House of the birds of Paradise,
Round fane impervious to the skies;
On whose green roof two nights of rain
May fiercely beat, and beat in vain!
I know thy leaves are ever scathless;
The hardened steel as soon will blight;
When every grove and hill are pathless
With frosts of winter’s lengthened night,
No goat from Havren’s[1] banks I ween,
From thee a scanty meal may glean!
Though Spring’s bleak wind with clamour launches
His wrath upon thy iron spray;
Armed holly tree! from thy firm branches
He will not wrest a tithe away!
Chapel of verdure, neatly wove,
Above the summit of the grove!
- ↑ ‘Havren,’ the river Severn.