Love's thief
Swift these sickening words eight times I have travelled
to those forests, my course for nothing revealed
as a crazed one, many a while in the open air
I forgot the hearth of domesticity there.
But easier for me, before any hint of dawn ray
may I find her there in the woods, long to stay
lovingly for the sweet prize of a girl's touch...
walks the lover to his distant love in the wood.
I become disheartened, and the sun of the forest
once dripping sweetest cups of wine is not mine.Yet
ah despoil then!they view me from the village, fleet
of foot to the lovely girl in that land of hurting meets,
as caught in the nets of dispute my illicit tryst
that greyfaced commentary from the villagers makes me thief.
I do not shun the brighter face of the daytime now
not a cheap thief to take a mans horse,his pony mine now,
only one who steals the girl's heart in the wooded place
no black stallion or ram of worth will I take.
I am thief only of her maiden's awaiting virtue there
not thief from the millers fold but thief of lady's hair;
not one who rips gold coins from the too possessive hands.
Keep your cattle your wealth to be will not be released and
this appelation I take fully into my definition then
that never stole I anything with hoofs rattling from honest men.
All it was that I took was but assignation of stolen part
that I took as I thieved only from a lady and my smarting heart.
Adapted from the medieval Welsh of Dafydd ap Gwilym in his poem Lleidr Serch
