Mae

Translations by Mererid Hopwood

Rage

Do not be afraid.

Let the sun touch

your deep-frozen fury

and release

the energy that transforms.

Fear not the storms,

for the calm will come.

Fear not the heat of the drum

that beats your heart

nor the heat of the hum

in your mind.

Fear nothing

but the lulling ebb that grinds smooth

the cool senses

to conform -

your indifference.

Do not be afraid

of anything else

not even the moon,

friend,

do not be afraid,

for life is without end.

Listen,

soon

it will be dawn.

Crossing out the debt of June 1940

(Epynt)

Dear Sir, I dare say you won’t remember

that summer’s fervour, when your fear

took out a loan, a green-blue land,

a borrowing, mountain sized,

a Pabell, without her people.

Well, here’s the crack,

I’m writing since we want it back.

Say, Brother, from your general’s rank,

d’you see the interest it’s accrued,

the biting arrears that you owe

the lineage of Cilieni?

Eight decades, Brother,

the place has hissed with gun shell

where wheat should sing sweet silence.

So, this letter, Brother,

claims our Epynt back.

We want to paint it free from hate’s attack,

knowing, as we right the wrong,

we shall not let tomorrow

bring the swallow’s final song.

War

In response to Hedd Wyn’s ‘Rhyfel’ and ‘Blotyn Du’

What mercy when the sun’s five rays of light

shut tight and rain in fistfuls splintered steel,

when storms and shadows leave no trace of fright

or sweat on bloody hands that do not feel?

What mercy when the winds are swords so sharp

their terrors lash out grief in mothers’ heads,

while still we cradle dreams, and sing the harp’s

sweet hiraeth having torn the world to shreds?

What mercy when we claim the moon, the cloud

with bands of gold, the sky and every star,

and dress the Order as we knew it in a shroud,

oblivious to the maggots in the scar?

Let pity weep for me, for us, the set

that does no more than ‘fire and forget’.