MY BURIAL
(After Dafydd ab Gwilym, the most famous Welsh lyrical poet, 1340-1400)
| When I die, O,
bury me Within the free young wild wood; Little birches, o'er me bent, Lamenting as my child would! Let my surplice-shroud be spun Of sparkling summer clover; While the great and stately treen Their rich rood-screen hang over! For my bier-cloth blossomed may Outlay on eight green willows! Sea-gulls white to bear my pall Take flight from all the billows. Summer's cloister be my church Of soft leaf-searching whispers, From whose mossed bench the nightingale To all the vale chants vespers! Mellow-toned, the brake amid, My organ hid be cuckoo! Paters, seemly hours and psalm Bird voices calm re-echo! Mystic masses, sweet addresses, Blackbird, be thou offering; Till God His Bard to Paradise Uplift from sighs and suffering. |