Ffynnon Esger (‘Esger Spring’)
original by Donald Evans, translation by Gwilym Morus-Baird
She is some refuge
from the most silent of retreats,
far from the sights of the world,
and trivially unimportant too.
And yet the old ditch
to its foundation is like the light of the stars,
and her gaunt cleft from the black ground
is counted amongst the great powers.
Bright of complexion is the dusk of her depth
to the channels of mystery
from the sunshine spiralling
to the depth of her murmuring cellar,
and she is always light
in her path from the underworld
and she jumps cold, rising again
enlivening from its core.
I hear in the noiseless bustle
the sounds of water’s expanses
on the moorland at the fringes of her land —
the spring of every river throughout the world.