Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/Treasures of Cambrian Antiquity
TREASURES OF CAMBRIAN ANTIQUITY.
Nations, like winds and waves,
Have their ebb and flow,
And on ocean’s shores and caves
Winds and waves bestow
Traces of the wealth and power,
That was theirs for one brief hour—
Treasures cull’d from ev’ry shore
They had kiss’d or wander’d o’er—
Corals dug from deepest brine,
England’s oak, and Norway’s pine—
Grecian marbles all refined,
With the opulence of mind—
Wrecks of glories that appear
In a youthful hemisphere
Giant trees, and fruit and flow’r,
Rife with Nature’s fullest pow’r!
If e’en winds and waves,
Ere they sever and depart,
Glean from ocean’s shores and caves
Gems of nature and of art—
Shall we more regardless be
Than the tempest and the sea
Of the treasures we inherit,
Of our fathers’ heart and spirit!
Of the records that remain,
Of their genius and their reign!
Shall we not these relics save
From the tempest and the wave?
Snatch them from the swift decay
That awaits all things of earth;
Bind them in a wreath that may
Soften sadness—hallow mirth!
FINIS.
London: Printed by William Clowes, 14, Charing Cross.