In Praise of Summer

Taken on the downs above Kingston Lisle.

 

IN PRAISE OF SUMMER

Mawl i’r Haf

 

Summer in paternal pride

Begets the trees’ pleasing shade:

Forest-master, wood-watcher,

High tower, hill-thatcher,

Regal ruler, virile member

Blows the world from an ember.

Summer, source of wondering words,

Dwelling of each spreading wort,

Balm for growing, in a welter,

Ointment, bewitchment of the woods.

 

By god! Blessed is the hand

That gives growth to branches hard!

Earth’s four quarters are impelled

To generate, on sweet impulse

Out of the earth, verdant crops,

Birds that burst to flying flocks,

Hay meadows, blown by breeze,

Hives, humming swarms of bees.

Foster-father, loving help

Of earth’s loaded garden heap

And webs of leaves, a leafy graft.

A source of never ending grief:

How soon August comes, the brawler

Who tears down my lovely bower.

To know that all this green and gold

Must depart in mist and cold!

 

Tell me, Summer, to what place

Do you creep to hide your face –

When you leave, sowing woe

To what country do you go?

 

Summer answers: “Poet, cease,

Lest your praise should turn to curse.

Fate invites me, fate repels;

Spring surrenders, autumn rebels.

I must grow in but three months

Crops enough to fill your mouths,

And when the rooftree and the leaves

Are bundled close, like harvest sheaves,

I must escape the winter wind,

And enter Annwn , leave the world.”

 

Blessings, tuned by every poet

Fall on you, as you depart:

Farewell, king of idylls;

Farewell, lord of the idle;

Farewell, cuckoos fledged;

Farewell, June’s fields;

Farewell, sun climbing

And the plump, white-bellied cloud.

 

Bright captain sun, you shall not reign

So highly; drifting snow will ruin

Your handiwork. But meagre hopes

Will plant a garden on summer’s slopes.

 

- Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson.

Done