Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Poet's Petition

by Dafydd ap Gwilym

THE POET’S PETITION

TO THE WAVE THAT PREVENTED HIM CROSSING THE RIVER DOVEY TO VISIT MORVYTH.

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Hoarse wave, with crest of curling foam,
Back to thy native ocean roam;
And leave the fords of Dovey free,
That Morvyth separate from me!
No bard before hath loved to tell
Thy glassy tower—thy lordly swell—
Thou branch of ocean’s mighty stem—
Thou sailor’s friend—thou briny gem!
The storm—the rush of hostile ranks,
Jamm’d ’twixt the close and cleftless banks—
The war-steed’s sinewy chest of might—
Are faint to thee, thou billowy height!
No organ, harp, no vocal tone,
Are like thy vast and fearful moan.
To her no other pledge I’ll give,
The snow-white maid for whom I live,
Than call her beauty like the light,
And as thy circling waters bright!
Thou bright round billow, let me pass
Beyond thy ring of azure glass;
For long my love, awaiting me,
Stands by Lanbadarn’s birchen tree.
Of sunken rocks, thou mantle hoar,
Chafed on the wild and rugged shore—

Friend of the sea—knight of the spray—
Oh, did’st thou know, for this delay,
What penalty the bard must pay,
Thou would’st not raise thy gloomy face
Between him and the trysting-place!
What though for Indeg’s^[1] charms sublime,
My limbs thy dreadful heights must climb;—
Though death were in thy eddies stern;—
Death and thy hate I’ll rather spurn,
Than back from Morvyth’s shore return!

[The foregoing and a few other poems in this volume have previously appeared in the “Cambrian Quarterly Magazine.”]

1. Indeg was a lady of King Arthur’s court, and a celebrated beauty. The bard here applies the name poetically to Morfydd.