Dafydd ap Gwilym Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

Welkin's wind, way unhindered,
Big blusterer passing by,
A harsh-voiced man of marvels,
World-bold, without foot or wing.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
O sea-bird, beautiful upon the tides,
White as the moon is when the night abides,
Or snow untouched, whose dustless splendor glows
Bright as a sunbeam and whose white wing throws
A glove of challenge on the salt sea-flood.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
Blue, round, miserable moon, full of magic, picture that draws like a magnet, pale-colored, charmed jewel, made by sorcerers; swiftest of dreams, cold traitor, brother to the ice, most evil and unkind of servants, let hell consume the hateful, thin, bent-lipped mirror!

Dafydd ap Gwilym
I am twisted with passion – plague on all the girls of the parish! since I suffered from trysts which went amiss, and could never win a single one of them, neither gentle hopeful maid, nor little lass, nor hag, nor wife.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
I never entertained the dreadful thought that my face was anything other than good and fair until, in an act of revelation, I picked up a mirror.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
I have an equal right to make poems as you have to pray, I have the same right to sing for my bread as you to beg for it. Are not hymns and sequences but other kinds of odes and elegiacs? And are not the psalms of David poems to the good God?

Dafydd ap Gwilym
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.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
Triumphant hours are the Lark's
Who circles skywards from his home each day:
World's early riser, with bubbling golden song,
Towards the firmament, guardian of April's gate.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
God is not so cruel as old men tell us: nor will God cut off the gentle soul of a man for loving a woman or a girl. Three things are loved by the whole world: women, fine weather, and good health, and girls are the fairest flower in Heaven next to God Himself.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
It was sweet, my love, a while
To live our life beneath the grove of birch,
More sweet was it fondly to embrace
Together hid in our woodland retreat,
Together to be wandering on the ocean's shore,
Together lingering by the forest's edge,
Together to plant birches – task of joy –
Together weave fair plumage of the trees,
Together talk of love with my slim girl,
Together gaze on solitary fields.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
Winnowing leaves, you steal nests,
None charge you, you're not halted
By armed band, lieutenant's hand,
Blue blade or flood or downpour.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
A fine handsome youth rewarded me;
May is a generous, open-handed prince.
He sent me true coins:
Clean green leaves of May's gentle hazels.
Twigs' florins don't disappoint me,
May's fleur-de-lys wealth.

Dafydd ap Gwilym
There never has been a time when I did not fall in love with one or two in a single day.

Dafydd ap Gwilym