Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym

Thou bodiless, shadowless elf! careering From fell to rock, from rock to tow’r! With many a shout of goblin laughter cheering The mountain spirits in their craggy bow’r; Turning to faery revelry and mirth Each sound of weal or woe that owes its birth To mortal man—frail being of an hour! Like aspen leaf that quails with like emotion, Beneath the summer’s flick’ring breeze, As from the hurricane whose fierce commotion Wracks into dell and precipice the seas— Like avalanche, whose earth-born thunders hear Alike the bugle of the mountaineer, And a whole army’s warlike revelries! Thus thou each voice that near thy dwelling lingers With elfin murmurs dost salute, Till the whole mountain fastness to thy fingers Trembles instinct with music like a lute! Like wintry floods the gathering chorus broods O’er all the waste and boundless solitudes, Nor fell nor fount nor precipice is mute. The monarch’s voice, the shepherd’s idle shout, And childhood’s laugh of ecstasy, Alike have drawn thy sweet responses out, And filled thy thousand hills with melody! Mirror of sound! as ocean is of heaven, (Its depths with sun and shade and storm engraven, And tiny star and cloudy canopy!) The earth, the sea, the palace, and the tomb Teem with the marks of human pride; How holy then is the melodious gloom Of thy sweet oracle to none denied! Floating to heav’n along the mountain air, Like angel hosts that ever wait to bear Before the throne of God the humblest infant’s prayer!