Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym

Peace to the shades of him who sleeps Beneath yon tarn’s aërial steeps! Far nobler is his tomb Than all the pomp that waits the great— The tears of well dissembled hate, The dark procession’s gloom, The solemn knell at midnight toll’d, The glorious requiem sadly roll’d From yon majestic pile, Whose awful echoes wildly spread, Then fade (like voices of the dead) Beneath the moonbeam’s smile! But though the despot’s vanish’d power May claim the pageant of an hour— Can tyranny command A sepulchre like this sublime, Mid ev’ry shock of storm and time, Still fresh from nature’s hand! The urn’s proud characters decay, And truth rebukes the hireling lay— The venal poet’s moan; But brighter blooms this artless mound, Where ev’ry stone that rises round By sorrow’s hand was thrown! For earth and heav’n with man combine To renovate this lonely shrine— New verdure to impart To its wild knoll and grassy surge, That speak upon the mountain’s verge, The grief of many a heart! Alas! if ev’ry grave were reft Of all, except what love has left, How soon would melt in air The pond’rous tomb, the sculptured bust, And leave the king’s, the warrior’s dust— To these compared how bare!