Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Peat Pool
THE PEAT POOL.
The bard, on returning from a visit to Morvyth, falls into a pool amongst the peat bogs.
Woe to the bard who, far astray,
Moans o’er his errors with dismay!
Dark is the night upon the shore—
All dark upon the mountain moor—
All—all is darkness far and near—
(Oh, madness, thou hast brought me here!)
Dark is the treacherous earth to-night,
And dark the young moon’s orb of light!
Oh that the maid of glorious hue,
The gloom of this black midnight knew;
And that the bard who sings her praise,
In the keen blasts of darkness strays!
Oh, luckless hour! Oh, wayward thought!
That to this pass his footsteps brought,
And far from home, on hostile ground,
Him and his dappled steed have bound;
And worst of all, that such a fate,
Him journeying homeward should await,
With lady’s tenderness elate!
It was a grievous fate, indeed,
That plunged the poet and his steed
Into this gulf upon the heath,
This fishing-pond of Gwyn ap Neath[1];
Abyss that glen and mead divides—
This palace of the elfin race—
“Lake vinegar,” with bay-hued tides,—
The foul swine’s fav’rite bathing place!
I spoiled with mud my stockings there,
y “kersey” stockings brought from Caer[2].
Oh, sad disgrace! Oh, shame decreed!
In this dark swamp to bard and steed!
Cold breezes pinch him for his pains,
Who dug this pond in sunlight clear[3];
If e’er firm land the bard regains,
He’ll never send his blessing here!
- ↑ ‘Gwyn ap Neath,’ the Faery King.
- ↑ ‘Caer,’ applied to many places in Wales, as Caernarvon, Caermarthen; also, and most properly, to Chester.
- ↑ The pond into which the poet fell was an accumulation of water in one of the hollows from which peat had been dug during the season of the year usually employed for that purpose.