A Cruel Girl
A hateful yearning, however long I try -
an enchanting love; I'm gullible, pale -
so great is my desire,
4 to hunt down and corner the sun of Deheubarth -
she of the colour of foam that covers a stone bench,
fair, black-browed - she always escapes.
I cannot have her against her will,
8 and the girl won't take me willingly.
I'll not be silent, even if I go without pay,
more than a nightingale in the branches.
May Mary and God and Mordeyrn,
12 those who see my dire fate,
grant me (such tumultuous passion),
because of my ardour
either to die shortly without delay
16 or to have the generous girl and live long.
Some fools say it's unlikely
(is this not deceit?) that I'm able
to sing a single word (may I love [her] image)
20 to any except her - I'm a poor instructor.
After I've praised a girl whose very sleep is noble
with fine song (and this is well known),
no wily grey-haired merchant would give away
24 all that verse for twenty pounds.
Far from receiving (nine gifts of madness)
its true value, I've had nothing but frivolity and deceit.
It was a foolish gift, just as if
28 a man with a yew bow
were shooting, where an anchor holds,
at a seagull by the ocean shore,
with no sign of reward, without getting [back] the bolts
32 or the tough-clawed, wild, white bird.
I'm persistent, shooting song in vain,
which is worse than shooting an arrow at the stars.
If I were to compose (I know a hundred englyn-poems)
36 for God as much as I've composed for her,
He would easily for my sake, if I demanded it,
bring the dead back to life, the greatest intercession of all.
She'd not do the slightest thing
40 for my sake, fair maid with whitest teeth.
The girl prefers (she allows me no easy sleep)
her old home and her dinner
to doing (where there's a dewy feast)
44 as fair Gweirfyl does, Gwynedd's true glory.
She'd not swap (glory of heaven)
where she is for being by Mary's side.
No yellow-haired girl (visitation of restless love)
48 was ever born so cruel.
If she of the colour of mountain snow rejects
my praise (she was once true) -
that would be a market-place rejection,
52 my gentle darling's renouncement -
wound upon wound, fair, slender, dazzling girl,
leaden and false, a plague upon her!