Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/Snowdon
SNOWDON.
Hill of my country! how sublime
E’en in these latter days art thou,
When stream and light’ning, war and time
Have wrested from thy triple brow
Its crown of forests—that of yore
Like some aërial palace rose,
And oft when every sea and shore
Were peopled with thy children’s foes,
Within its mighty foliage gave
A living shelter to the brave![1]
Well might our simple fathers say
That he who dares one night to dwell—
One night to dream away
On thy sublimest pinnacle—
Must wake a holier man
Than when the night began!
[2]If aught that’s earthly can impart
A poet’s ecstasy of heart,
’Tis thy enchanted rocks and scaurs,
And peaks that mingle with the stars,
And headlong torrents bounding by
As from some fountain in the sky—
And golden clouds at random driven—
And dim lakes buried in the heaven—
And bright glens cloven in thy brow
As if by some enchanter’s plough!
Oh! who could sleep one single night,
Unearthly Snowdon, on thy height,
Without in feeling more belonging
To the red stars around him thronging!
Well might the bards of freedom seek,
At midnight, on thy glimm’ring peak,
That pure and hallowed inspiration
That strung the bow and nerved the hand
A thousand times in Cambria’s land,
Which wrung from tyranny’s command
The Cambrian soil and nation!
King of the mountains, though the pride
Of all thy giant oaks is faded,
(Some to the hearth, some to the tide,)
And thou art all unshaded,
Save by the wandering clouds that weave
Their fleeting canopy at eve—
Still art thou all that can inspire
The patriot’s love, the poet’s lyre—
Still does the gift to thee belong
Of valour, beauty, and of song—
Still shall thy eagle ramparts stand—
The throne—the shield—the altar of our land!