Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/To the Gull
TO THE GULL.
The bard asks the gull to be his love-envoy to Morvyth. Morvyth (Morfydd) was a lady to whom the poet was attached through life, and whose beauty forms the chief theme of his poems.
Bird that dwellest in the spray,
White as yon moon’s calm array,
Dust thy beauty ne’er may stain,
Sunbeam-gauntlet of the main[1]!
Soaring with aërial motion
On the surges of the ocean.
Bird of lofty pinion, fed
On the fishes of the sea,
Wilt thou not disdain or dread
Hence to learn a rhapsody—
Rhymes of praise to her whose dart
Ever rankles in my heart?
Wilt thou (lily of the sea!)
Draw near, hand-in-hand with me,
To the beauteous maiden’s home;
(Nun that dwellest in the foam!)
With thy glossy figure climb
Round her castle’s walls sublime.
Soon the girl of virgin hue,
On those tow’rs will meet thy view.
Tell her ev’ry rapt’rous word
Thou of her from me hast heard:
Court her glance—be polished—wise,
When on thee she turns her eyes:
Say her poet loves her more
Than bard ever lov’d before;
That a maid so pure and bright
By Taliesin ne’er was sung,
Nor wild Merddin’s flatt’ring tongue.
Sea-gull, if she meets thy sight,
Tell her that I must resign
Life, if she will not be mine:—
With unequalled pangs I pine!
- ↑ This epithet seems to imply a comparison between the gull, with its wings extended over the sea, to the spreading finger of a gauntlet.