Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Mirror
THE MIRROR.
I always deemed my features bright,
And beautiful and fair,
Until yon mirror met my sight—
When, lo! an ugly face was there!
And from that mirror I have learned,
That now my beauty all is fled,
To yellow—Enid’s scorn has turned
The glow that o’er my cheeks was spread!
And that by grief’s incessant dews
My faded cheeks are changed to glass,
So striped with blue and yellow hues,
So thin, so pale, they seem, alas!
And that a razor now supplies,
Oh, woe! the place of the long nose;
And that the seat of the full eyes,
Holes, as by auger pierced, disclose!
That all the rich and flowing locks
Have fall’n for ever from my head—
Thy tale my sense, false mirror, mocks!
The wrinkles thou hast freely shed
O’er all my visage are the stains
Of thine own foul and mottled mien!
Had love thus wracked me with his pains,
Long in my grave should I have been!
Thou blue round moon—thou drear delusion!
Thou magnet fashioned sorceress!
Thou world of dreams and dire confusion,—
Ice-like in hue and brittleness!
Gem of enchantment—thing of guilt—
Of falsehood, treachery, and shame—
I’ll fling thy frame by sorc’rers built—
Thou wry-mouthed mirror—to the flame!
If I give credit to thy tale,
For Gwyneth’s maiden kind and meek:
My face is wrinkled o’er and pale—
Ah! she has power to blanch the cheek!