The Stars

Cywydd for the Stars

Cywydd y Sêr

 

By great God, we made our way

Through the groves, girl, maid of May,

Wandering down the wooded vale,

And your haloed hair glowed pale

Upon the hill. At the bright

Spring we drank. The birches white

Stood gaunt in the dark and cold:

The rage of love made me bold.

 

I took – sorry is the tale –

A wretched walk through the vale

The next night, and bane or bliss

Set me yearning for your kiss

Since you consented. Sore blight

That I sought the road that night!

I blundered on, deaf and blind

As Trystan when he lost his mind

To love, and strayed, brain in fog,

Through heath, moor and blanket bog,

Crossed enclosures, roughly wrought,

Over ramparts of a fort,

Stumbling down where demons dwell

On that windy night of hell.

 

A darkling dusk dimmed my sight;

The gaunt gorsedd on the height

Grew black. Blundering in the gorse,

I despaired to guess my course,

By bog embattled – grim pall

Of darkness like a dungeon wall!

I crossed myself, called on God,

Stumbled cold on mossy clod.

My fingers froze. I remembered –

Hope dying to an ember –

A strange tale of scaly-skinned

Reptiles borne of air and wind

Imprisoned in a stone chest:

Like them I bawled, beat my breast –

The bog was vile – pleading, faint,

Pledging to the patron saint

Of lovers, in Llanddwyn shrine,

My pilgrimage. “Saviour mine,

Hear a poet, son of Mair!”

He heard: mercy set afire

Twelve constellations winking,

Throng of stars to stop me sinking

In the mire. Celestial fire,

Bright rush-candles of desire,

Winter berries all aglow,

Sparks that from the bonfire flow,

Autumn’s kindlings, nature’s boon

Flaming forth to meet the moon,

Sown seeds of the moonlit night

Flung forth to eternal flight,

Hazelnuts profusely poured

Across the sky by the Lord

Who separates dark and light,

Eagles of the glowering night,

Each a sun to make me squint,

Pale as pennies, white as flint,

Gems that grace my God, the Source,

Stud the saddle of his horse!

 

In the dawning days he strewed

Across the skies a multitude

Of rivets gleaming. Like gold

To fuel ardour in the cold,

Undeterred by wind, each spark

A hole driven through the dark.

Gales fail to wash from sight

The stars on the sea of night.

Through ageless aeons, men spy

Diadems that crown the sky,

Strain the eye, observe in flights

Ten-thousand altar-lights,

Like a rosary unstrung,

Beads across the velvet flung,

Illuminating all below:

They flood the moor, make it glow,

Light my pathway like a stream,

Set the roads of Môn agleam!

 

I’ve not had a wink of sleep;

To her chamber, soft I creep.

In my arms she sighs and stirs;

I take my ease, thank my stars.

Love enkindles: sparks have flown:

An axe struck against a stone.

 

Source material: Attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. Only two of the twenty-two manuscripts of this poem attribute it to Dafydd ap Gwilym, and it is possible that it is the work of Gruffudd Gryg (fl. 1357-70), but more recent scholarship has favoured the former author. It certainly blends a number of features typical of Dafydd’s work. The reference to reptiles imprisoned in a stone chest is an allusion to the story of Lludd and Llefelys in the Mabinogion. Every May eve, Lludd’s kingdom is troubled by horrendous screechings in the night, so blood-curdling that they cause pregnant women to miscarry, and spread barrenness across the land. Llefelys advises Lludd to attract the dragons with a vat of mead, and then imprison them in a stone chest under the earth where, presumably, they continue to fight and screech unheard. Dafydd appeals to St Dwynwen, patron saint of lovers, whose shrine was in the church at Llanddwyn – a favourite for invocation by Welsh bards. It is typical of Dafydd’s poetry that the speaker sees no contradiction in asking God to aid him when his ultimate intention is to carry on an illicit affair. The final line is a reference to the proverb, “Taro’r fwyall yn y maen”, striking the axe in the stone: hard work with little reward. A literal reading of the poem makes it seem as though Dafydd thinks his girl is worth a lot of trouble, but not perhaps to the extent of risking his life upon the moors at night. However, as so often with Dafydd’s work, this conclusion is implicitly contradicted: an axe struck against a stone produces sparks: an image of the stars that saved his life, but also perhaps an allusion to the pyrotechnics of his tryst with his beloved. I have chosen to emphasise this more cryptic reading in the paraphrase.

 

Done