Translators From Wales

"Nowadays people read history with the simple desire to obtain accurate information upon all points connected both with the public and private life of their forefathers, and demand rather a digest of authentic records than a literary essay."

"Dire lust of gold! how mighty thy controll To bend to crime man's impotence of soul!"

"They can because they dare."

"Hard is the task, O Queen! that you impose, To tear my bosom with reviving woes."

"O! trust not to the horse, my Trojan Friends! Whate'er it means, it means but to deceive. I dread the Grecians even when they give."

"And shall I die? and unrevenged?" she said: "Yes! let me die! thus—thus I plunge in night."

"Roman! be thine the sovereign arts of sway; Nobly to rule, and make the world obey: Give peace its laws; respect the prostrate foe: Abase the lofty, and exalt the low."

"But, O ye Gods! and thou, whom gods obey, Great Jove! with pity listen as I pray! Respect the monarch's and the father's prayer! If Pallas' safety be your heavenly care; If to infold him in these arms again I live, for life I sue with all its pain. But if some dreadful fortune be design'd, Now, now, while hope still soothes my cheated mind; Ere yet the future shall its fates unfold; While thus my son, my last, sole joy, I hold; O! break life's chain at once, and let me go, By darkness shrouded, from the death of woe!"

"And while the memory of self remains, While life's warm spirit quickens in my veins, Still shall your worth be treasured in my breast; And still Elissa's virtues be confess'd."

"As it is generally seen, blank verse seems to be only a laborious and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose... if it ever ventures to relax into simple and natural phraseology, it instantly becomes tame and the prey of its pursuer."

"Arms, and the man who first, by Fate's command, From Ilion flying, sought Italia's strand, And gain'd Lavinium, are my themes of song. Long toss'd by waves, on land he suffer'd long: From power supernal, such his doom of woe; Pursued by vengeful Juno as her foe."

"Son!" cried the weeping sire, "the wish forego, To learn what late must whelm thy house in woe. Him shall the jealous Fates but show to earth: A short bright flash between decease and birth. Too high, ye Gods! our Roman power had grown, Had this your precious gift been all our own. How shall the field of Mars lament his doom! Its plain reflecting the vast groan of Rome! Tiber! what pomps of woe shall o'er thy wave Gloom, as it murmurs by the recent grave! No youth of Troy, thus rich in early praise, So high the hope of Italy shall raise: Nor shall our Rome, 'mid all her hero-host, A son so bright in dawning glory boast. O piety! O faith of ancient strain! O hand, unconquer'd on the martial plain! On foot, or spurring his impetuous steed, The foe that met him had been sure to bleed. Ah! could'st thou, hapless boy! through fate's decree Break into age, thou should'st Marcellus be!"

"Yet have I lived!—and lived for noble ends! My shade in glory to the shades descends."

"—————————— to death's abode Prone lies the path, and facile is the road. To all who seek them open day and night, Pluto's black gates with broad access invite. But to recall the foot, retrace the way Up the dark steep, and re-assert the day— This is the labor, this the mighty feat, Achieved by few, the greatest of the great."

"If civilisation drowns"

"There is an extra loss for a Welsh poet writing in English, and that is, the longing for Welsh, the secret language.. of all the centuries of speech and song."

"Listening to a Gillian Clarke poem is an intensely sensual experience, concrete as it is musical."

"There is no such thing as a silent poem."

"The mystic too full of God to speak intelligibly to the world."

"He knew that the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness is not a necessary virtue."

"Without charm there can be no fine literature, as there can be no perfect flower without fragrance."

"The gray-green stretch of sandy grass, Indefinitely desolate; A sea of lead, a sky of slate; Already autumn in the air, alas! One stark monotony of stone, The long hotel, acutely white, Against the after-sunset light Withers gray-green, and takes the grass's tone."

"And I would have, now love is over, An end to all, an end: I cannot, having been your lover, Stoop to become your friend!"

"The wind is rising on the sea, The windy white foam-dancers leap; And the sea moans uneasily, And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep."

"They pass upon their old, tremulous feet, Creeping with little satchels down the street, And they remember, many years ago, Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow And solitary, through the city ways, And they alone remember those old days Men have forgotten."

"Sweet, can I sing you the song of your kisses? How soft is this one, how subtle this is, How fluttering swift as a bird's kiss that is, As a bird that taps at a leafy lattice; How this one clings and how that uncloses From bud to flower in the way of roses."

"Here in a little lonely room I am master of earth and sea, And the planets come to me."

"The gipsy tents are on the down, The gipsy girls are here; And it's O to be off and away from the town With a gipsy for my dear!"

"I have loved colours, and not flowers; Their motion, not the swallows wings; And wasted more than half my hours Without the comradeship of things."

"I heard the sighing of the reeds At noontide and at evening, And some old dream I had forgotten I seemed to be remembering."

"My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring."

"My life is like a music-hall, Where, in the impotence of rage, Chained by enchantment to my stall, I see myself upon the stage Dance to amuse a music-hall."

"They weave a slow andante as in sleep, Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep A treachery of silence; infinite."

"What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves.... He must have the passion of a lover."

"I have laid sorrow to sleep; Love sleeps. She who oft made me weep Now weeps."

"Emmy's exquisite youth and her virginal air, Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile, Come to me out of the past, and I see her there As I saw her once for a while."

"O my child, who wronged you first, and began First the dance of death that you dance so well? Soul for soul: and I think the soul of a man Shall answer for yours in hell."

"Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders."

"All art is a form of artifice.For in art there can be no prejudices."

"There is in God — some say — A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear. O for that Night! where I in Him Might live invisible and dim!"

"Dear Night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and His prayer-time; The hours to which high Heaven doth chime."

"Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven."

"As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing."

"Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch Till the white-wing’d reapers come!"

"Tempests and windes and winter-nights Vex not, that but One sees thee grow, That One made all these lesser lights. If those bright joys He singly sheds On thee, were all met in one crown, Both sun and stars would hide their heads ; And moons, though full, would get them down."

"My soul, there is a country Far beyond the stars Where stands a wingèd sentry All skillful in the wars: There, above noise and danger, Sweet Peace is crowned with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files."

"And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep."

"Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new."

"I see them walking in an air of glory Whose light doth trample on my days, My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmering and decays."

"They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit lingering here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear."