Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/The Thrush and the Nightingale
THE THRUSH AND THE NIGHTINGALE OFFICIATE AS PRIESTS.
This poem contains many beautiful and fanciful allusions to the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church. I have translated it into prose, and almost literally, as the best means of conveying the spirit of the original.
In a place of ecstasy I was to-day,
Under the mantles of the splendid green hazels,
Where I listened, at the dawn of day,
To the song of the thrush, an adept in music,
From a distant country, without delay or weariness.
On a long journey my mottled love-messenger had come,
He had travelled here from the narrow county of Chester
At the request of my golden sister, (i. e. Morvyth);
A noble bell[1] (to those who love bells) was rung,
Its sound reached to the roof of the dingle.
His robe, from his slender waist, was
Of a thousand delicately branching flowers;
His cassock you might imagine to be
Of the wings of the ardent flapping wind.
The altar there was covered
With nothing but gold:
Morvyth had sent him,
(Metrical singer, foster-son of May!)
I heard him in brilliant language
Prophesy without ceasing,
And read to the parish
The gospel without stammering!
He raised for us on the hills there
The sacred wafer made of a fair leaf:
And the beautiful nightingale, slender and tall,
From the corner of the glen near him,
Priest of the dingle! sang to a thousand;
And the bells of the mass continually did ring,
And raised the host
To the sky, above the thicket,
And sang stanzas to our Lord and Creator,
With sylvan ecstasy and love!
I am enraptured with the song
Which was matured in the birchen grove of the woods.
- ↑ In this line the bells are supposed to ring for service; the bard then describes the “cassock” of the thrush, whom he imagines to officiate as priest, and the other accompaniments of Roman Catholic worship.