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The Map and the Clock

Page 4

by Carol Ann Duffy


  a starved, pinched, raving madman,

  but sheltered in that dappled arbour,

  my haven, my winter harbour,

  my refuge from the bare heath,

  my royal fort, my king’s rath.

  Every night I glean and raid

  and comb the floor of the oak wood.

  My bands work into leaf and rind,

  roots, windfalls on the ground,

  they rake through matted watercress

  and grope among the bog-berries,

  cool brooklime, sorrel, damp moss,

  wild garlic and raspberries,

  apples, hazel-nuts, acorns,

  the haws of sharp, jaggy hawthorns,

  blackberries, the floating weed,

  the whole store of the oak wood.

  Keep me here, Christ, far away

  from open ground and flat country.

  Let me suffer the cold of glens.

  I dread the cold of open plains.

  ANON

  translated by Seamus Heaney

  Writing Out of Doors

  A wall of forest looms above

  and sweetly the blackbird sings;

  all the birds make melody

  over me and my books and things.

  There sings to me the cuckoo

  from bush-citadels in grey hood.

  God’s doom! May the Lord protect me

  writing well, under the great wood.

  ANON

  translated by James Carney

  from The Mabinogi: Rhiannon

  It’s little more than a bump in the land, a footnote

  in the catalogue of hills, crags and ridges,

  felt as an ache in the thighs, the heart’s

  flip and gulp, by those heavy

  with mutton and wine,

  then a subtle sense of arrival, a breeze

  scurrying up to attend to you,

  the green swell of crown, the fields

  gathering below.

  They say if you sit on the summit

  you’ll see a sight more chilling

  than the greys of rain,

  or something more brilliant than

  lightning’s snazzy gold.

  *

  From up here, everything is cloud: the grass, forest, corn,

  even the rocks, are nuances of weather.

  The road’s a white line through the billows.

  Pwyll watches with his men as

  a figure grows there:

  a horse with a lick of sunlight on its back,

  a horse with a knight in gilt armour,

  a horse with a splash of silk

  horsewoman riding,

  not so much moving as sharpening.

  Will she ever be real?

  The boy he sends down

  finds the road silent, her back

  already dwindling.

  *

  She is woman and horse. She rides slower than daydreams.

  She is what you’ve forgotten, where the time went.

  Singleminded as the sun, she rides

  always one way, and the air’s

  warmed by her passing.

  The man he sends after her, the second day,

  tries slowing down; she rides slower still

  and the road grows between them.

  He gallops again –

  always she dawdles away from him

  till she’s as small as a gnat,

  and his horse gasping.

  She slips into yesterday

  without being now.

  *

  On the third day he rides himself, on his sleekest horse,

  till it’s yeasty with sweat. She is a brushstroke

  on the stillness of the facing page,

  illuminated in gold

  on a green background

  and there is always a white space between them.

  At last he calls out to her to stop.

  There’s a wispy sound, the sense

  of a veil lifting,

  and they are side-by-side, flank to flank,

  He should have asked her sooner –

  better for the horse.

  They talk in time to the hoofs:

  saddle-courtesies.

  *

  Later he will ask himself how she knew who he was

  and why she chose him out of all the princes

  who hunt under these lumbering clouds.

  Now he is watching her smile

  as it comes and goes,

  a slip of candlelight seen under a door,

  listening to the cluck of laughter

  that nestles in the depths of her throat,

  hearing himself talk back

  in the silences she leaves for him.

  Later they will feast and dance

  and climb the long stairs.

  Later he’ll wonder. Today

  there’s wonder enough.

  ANON

  translated by Matthew Francis

  ‘Derry I cherish ever’

  Derry I cherish ever.

  It is calm, it is clear.

  Crowds of white angels on their rounds

  At every corner.

  ANON

  translated by Seamus Heaney

  I am Taliesin

  Taliesin. I sing perfect metre,

  Which will last to the end of the world.

  My patron is Elphin …

  I know why there is an echo in a hollow;

  Why silver gleams; why breath is black; why liver is bloody;

  Why a cow has horns; why a woman is affectionate;

  Why milk is white; why holly is green;

  Why a kid is bearded; why the cow-parsnip is hollow;

  Why brine is salt; why ale is bitter;

  Why the linnet is green and berries red;

  Why a cuckoo complains; why it sings;

  I know where the cuckoos of summer are in winter.

  I know what beasts there are at the bottom of the sea;

  How many spears in battle; how many drops in a shower;

  Why a river drowned Pharaoh’s people;

  Why fishes have scales.

  Why a white swan has black feet …

  I have been a blue salmon,

  I have been a dog, a stag, a roebuck on the mountain,

  A stock, a spade, an axe in the hand,

  A stallion, a bull, a buck,

  I was reaped and placed in an oven;

  I fell to the ground when I was being roasted

  And a hen swallowed me.

  For nine nights was I in her crop.

  I have been dead, I have been alive.

  I am Taliesin.

  ANON

  translated by Gwyn Jones

  The Heart of the Wood

  My hope and my love,

  we will go for a while into the wood,

  scattering the dew,

  where we will see the trout,

  we will see the blackbird on its nest;

  the deer and the buck calling,

  the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches;

  the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;

  and death will never come near us

  for ever in the sweet wood.

  ANON

  translated by Lady Augusta Gregory

  This ae Night

  This ae night, this ae night,

  Everie night and alle,

  Fire and salt and candle light

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  When thou from here away hast past,

  Everie night and alle,

  To Whinny moor thou com’st at last,

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,

  Everie night and alle,

  Sit thee down and put them on:

  And Christ receive they sawle!

  If hosen and shoon thou never gav’t nane

  Everie night and alle,

  The whins shall prick thee to the bare bane:
r />   And Christ receive thy sawle!

  From Whinny moor when thou may’st pass,

  Everie night and alle,

  To Brig o’Dread thou com’st at last:

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  From Brig o’Dread when thou may’st pass

  Everie night and alle,

  To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last,

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  If ever thou gavest meat or drink,

  Everie night and alle,

  The fire shall never make thee shrink:

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  If meat and drink thou ne’er gav’t nane,

  Everie night and alle,

  The fire will burn thee to the bare bane,

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  This ae night, this ae night,

  Everie night and alle,

  Fire and salt and candle light,

  And Christ receive thy sawle!

  ANON

  from The Parliament of Fowls

  I saw a garden, full of blossoming trees,

  In a green mead through which a river goes,

  Where sweetness everlasting fills the breeze,

  Of flowers blue and yellow, white and rose,

  And cold wellsprings whose water deathless flows,

  Teeming with little fishes quick and light,

  With fins of red and scales of silver bright.

  On every bough were birds; I heard them sing

  With voice angelic in their harmony,

  And some were busy hatchlings forth to bring;

  The little rabbits came to play nearby,

  And further off I then began to spy

  The timid roe, the buck, the hart and hind,

  Squirrels, and other beasts of gentle kind.

  Of stringed instruments playing in accord

  I heard the sound so ravishing that day

  That God himself, maker of all and Lord,

  Might never have heard better, I dare say.

  Therewith a wind that scarce could gentler play

  Made in the leafage green a murmur soft,

  Harmonious with the sound of birds aloft.

  And of that place the air so temperate was,

  No hurt was known of either heat or cold;

  There goodly spices grew, and wholesome grass,

  And no man there grew ever sick or old.

  Still was there joy above a thousand-fold

  More than man’s telling, nor was it ever night,

  But day for ever in all people’s sight.

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER

  translated by E. B. Richmond

  from The General Prologue

  When in April the sweet showers fall

  And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all

  The veins are bathed in liquor of such power

  As brings about the engendering of the flower,

  When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath

  Exhales an air in every grove and heath

  Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun

  His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,

  And the small fowl are making melody

  That sleep away the night with open eye

  (So nature pricks them and their heart engages)

  Then people long to go on pilgrimages

  And palmers long to seek the stranger strands

  Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,

  And specially, from every shire’s end

  Of England, down to Canterbury they wend

  To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick

  To give his help to them when they were sick.

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER

  translated by Nevill Coghill

  from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

  Now let me turn again to tell my tale;

  This blessed widow and her daughters two

  Heard all these hens in clamour and halloo

  And, rushing to the door at all this shrieking,

  They saw the fox towards the covert streaking

  And, on his shoulder, Chanticleer stretched flat.

  ‘Look, look!’ they cried, ‘O mercy, look at that!

  Ha! Ha! the fox!’ and after him they ran,

  And stick in hand ran many a serving man,

  Ran Coll our dog, ran Talbot, Bran and Shaggy,

  And with a distaff in her hand ran Maggie,

  Ran cow and calf and ran the very hogs

  In terror at the barking of the dogs;

  The men and women shouted, ran and cursed,

  They ran so hard they thought their hearts would burst,

  They yelled like fiends in Hell, ducks left the water

  Quacking and flapping as on point of slaughter,

  Up flew the geese in terror over the trees,

  Out of the hive came forth the swarm of bees

  So hideous was the noise – God bless us all,

  Jack Straw and all his followers in their brawl

  Were never half so shrill, for all their noise,

  When they were murdering those Flemish boys,

  As that day’s hue and cry upon the fox.

  They grabbed up trumpets made of brass and box,

  Of horn and bone, on which they blew and pooped,

  And therewithal they shouted and they whooped

  So that it seemed the very heavens would fall.

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER

  translated by Nevill Coghill

  The Seagull

  Smooth gull on the sea’s lagoon,

  White as snow or the white moon,

  Sun shard, gauntlet of the sea,

  Untroubled is your beauty.

  Buoyant you ride the rough tide,

  A swift, proud, fish-eating bird.

  Come to me, anchored on land,

  Sea-lily, come to my hand.

  White-robed, whiter than paper,

  You’re a sea-nun, sleek and pure.

  Wide praise is for you and her;

  Circle that castle tower,

  Search till you see her, seagull,

  Bright as Eigr on that wall.

  Take all my pleading to her,

  Tell her my life I offer.

  Tell her, should she be alone –

  Gently with that gentle one –

  If she will not take me, I,

  Losing her, must surely die.

  I completely worship her.

  Friends, no man ever loved more –

  Taliesin’s nor Merlin’s eye

  Saw a woman as lovely.

  Copper-curled, curved as Venus,

  How beautiful the girl is.

  O seagull, but see her face,

  Loveliest on the world’s surface,

  Then bring me her sweet greeting,

  Or my certain death you bring.

  DAFYDD AP GWILYM

  translated by Leslie Norris

  The Thrush

  Music of a thrush, clearbright

  Lovable language of light,

  Heard I under a birchtree

  Yesterday, all grace and glee –

  Was ever so sweet a thing

  Fine-plaited as his whistling?

  Matins, he reads the lesson,

  A chasuble of plumage on.

  His cry from a grove, his brightshout

  Over countrysides rings out,

  Hill prophet, maker of moods,

  Passion’s bright bard of glenwoods.

  Every voice of the brookside

  Sings he, in his darling pride,

  Every sweet-metred love-ode,

  Every song and organ mode,

  Competing for a truelove,

  Every catch for woman’s love.

  Preacher and reader of lore,

  Sweet and clear, inspired rapture,

  Bard of Ovid’s faultless rhyme,

  Chief prelate mild of Springtime.

  From his birch, where lovers throng,

  Author of the wood�
�s birdsong,

  Merrily the glade re-echoes –

  Rhymes and metres of love he knows.

  He on hazel sings so well

  Through cloistered trees (winged angel)

  Hardly a bird of Eden

  Had by rote remembered then

  How to recite what headlong

  Passion made him do with song.

  DAFYDD AP GWILYM

  translated by Tony Conran

  from Piers Plowman

  In the season of summer with the sun at its highest

  I dressed in my work-clothes like any poor shepherd,

  in the garb of a hermit but for worldly work

  and set off through the country to find what I’d find.

  I met many wonders and uncommon sights,

  till one morning in May on the hills behind Malvern

  I fell sound asleep, worn out by the walking.

  As I lay on the ground, resting and slumbering,

  I’d this marvellous dream I’ll describe to you now.

  I saw all the good that live in the world

  and the bad just as busy, be certain of that:

  loyalty, betrayal, let-down and cunning –

  I saw them all in my sleep: that’s what I’m saying.

  I looked to the East, in the track of the sun

  and saw a great tower – Truth’s home, I imagined.

  Then to the westward I looked shortly after

  and saw a deep valley. Death lived down there,

  I’d no doubt in my mind, with all evil spirits.

 

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