T. H. Parry-Williams: "Barrenness" (From Welsh)

Barrenness
By T. H. Parry-Williams 
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

It was a treeless world of weather-swept
Wilds in Snowdonia around my birth,
Bare as if giants had forever kept
Smoothing out every slanting slope of earth;
And as I grew up, through boyhood's amazing 
Years in our upland home among my own,
Those mountains' primal forms would press in, bracing
Me till their barrenness became my bone.
And if something of me survives my end
Without completely vanishing away,
And then is found by a like-hearted friend
By chance near Snowdon in the dusking day
He'll see in it no image, no design,
Just long-drawn barrenness' bleak outline.

Me reading the original:

The Original:

Moelni

Nid oedd ond llymder anial byd di-goed 
O gylch fy ngeni yn Eryri draw,
Fel petai’r cewri wedi bod erioed
Yn hir lyfnhau’r llechweddau ar bob llaw; 
A thros fy magu, drwy flynyddoedd syn 
Bachgendod yn ein cartref uchel ni, 
Ymwasgai henffurf y mynyddoedd hyn, 
Nes mynd o’u moelni i mewn i’m hanfod i. 
Ac os bydd peth o’m defnydd yn y byd 
Ar ôl yn rhywle heb ddiflannu’n llwyr,
A’i gael gan gyfaill o gyffelyb fryd
Ar siawns wrth odre’r Wyddfa ’mrig yr hwyr, 
Ni welir arno lun na chynllun chwaith, 
Dim ond amlinell lom y moelni maith

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