The Swan

Giles C. Watson has added a photo to the pool:

The Swan

The Swan
Yr Alarch

Lake-swan, in lime-white habit,
Water-cloistered pale abbot,
My snowdrift-clean Cistercian
Bright as Transfiguration,
Puppet-headed swamp-preacher,
Arch-necked in plainsong-pleasure:
God gave you Llyn Yfaddon
Deep as your neck can fathom
And good gifts, at the Dawning,
To keep a swan from drowning.

King of fishers, thanks to luck,
Adrift upon the glazed lake,
You can fly to hills afar,
And no fowl has less to fear.
Remember, when you fly forth:
Scry the surface of the earth,
Plumb the depths where fish swim: slow,
Numerous as flakes of snow.
Fast work it is, wave-rider,
Water-glistered shoal-raider,
To catch a fish with fine flair
Neck for rod and bill for lure.

Breast of foam, feathered snowflake,
Guard the secret of the lake.
Brook-ripples reflect your quills,
All agleam, as clear as quartz,
Clad in lilies. Haughty kings
Envy your unfurling wings.
Petal-feathered, wearing white
Meadow flowers that never wilt,
Cock of heaven, taunt of brides,
Envied by all other birds.

Turn your head to hearken, swan,
Llatai for a loving swain:
A girl lives close by your lees:
So coy. I am loth to lose
Her troth. My best-man swan, swim,
Questioning her womans whim
With that looped neck. Seek my lover
At the oxbow downriver
From Tal-y-Llyn: coloured like
Mirrored moonlight in the lake.

Her name? Fear forbids my voice,
Therefore I encode in verse
Thus: after H, U, and then
Ds and Y to follow N.
Go web-footed to her bed;
Summon her with nodding head,
Sing my sorrow with your throat,
Tell her how each lo! ving tho ught
Tortures me and makes me swoon:
Girl who dances like a swan.

God gave gifts that you might live;
Ill pay in grain, should she love.

Poem attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. There is no such lake as Llyn Yfaddon in Wales; it has been suggested that Dafydd means Llyn Syfaddon in Brycheiniog. There are several places called Tal-y-Llyn, but as these words mean top of the lake, it is possible that this reference is merely descriptive. Whilst Dafydds authorship has been contested, all twelve manuscripts attribute it to him, and it is very doubtful that the poem post-dates the mid-fifteenth century, since the girls name is clearly Hunydd, which does not appear in genealogies after that date. Dafydd describes the swan as a white abbot; I have chosen to make it a Cistercian, since Dafydd is purportedly buried at Strata Florida Abbey, a Cistercian foundation. Dafydds assumption that swans eat fish is erroneous: they subsist mainly on aquatic vegetation and invertebrates.


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