Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/A Bard's Address
A BARD’S ADDRESS TO THE RIVER WYE.
On the borders of Radnorshire and Brecknockshire the Wye flows for a considerable distance over a succession of rocky stairs or ledges: the banks of this river are rocky and beautifully wooded.
Sweet Wye, with thy waters now white as the snow,
Now dark as the thunder-cloud’s banner of woe,
With thy curtain of forests that soar to the skies,
From the rocks that like shields to environ thee rise,
I would choose thee, fair river, to be—as thou art—
A zone to the land of my home and my heart[1]!
Oh! why should we wander beyond thy wild stream,
From the land of the harp, and the bard, and his dream?
The streams of the Saxon are languid and dead,
Like the mist on the mountain when summer is fled,
Beside them the castle of tyranny soars,
The rock and the mountain are far from their shores!
Then ne’er will I quit the free river and proud,
That floats o’er her rocks like a ladder of cloud,
With her wild thronging billows, now soften’d, now shrill,
Like the laugh of fair infants that sport o’er the hill—
Now all glowing with light, now all snowy with foam,
Like the maids of the land of my heart and my home!
- ↑ This line is an allusion to the course which the Wye takes along the borders of Wales.
‘A zone to the land of my home and my heart!’