Dafydd ap Gwilym XV

A lock has been put on the door of the house, I am sick with loving you: hear me! Let me come and see you for God's generous sake and for your own. You are the girl I have celebrated in song (why should the song end in madness?) I swear by the Blessed Virgin who punishes me for it.

With my cold clumsy fingers I broke the latch while giving our signal of three clicks, then quickly the door was locked. Do you hear me now? The lock sounded loud as a bell to me out here. Morfudd, my chaste jewel, you are the nurse of all the deceit in the Principality. I make my bed against your wall, and call and pray to you my dear: have pity on my sleep lessness, the night is dark and I have been deceived. My feet know only weariness, alas! for the wretched weather that falls from the sky tonight. Torrents stream from the roof like eager weapons on my flesh, yet the rain is not harsher than my wound nor the snow under which I stand. I have been shut out and the snow lies on me like a cold yoke of tallow: I shiver under your eaves and the gray snow falls on me.

So I stand shivering, no greater punishment could be inflicted on a dead skin than the care which racks me: the Man who made me could not use me worse. In Carnarvon my prison was not worse than this road: there I would not be out all night, nor would I groan because of you, nor suffer the nightly ache of loving you. Nor would I now be out in rain and snow except for you. In my distress I would even forgive the whole world for your sake.

Here am I then enduring the cold, and you with all your grace and charity are in the house: my soul is with you there, my ghost is here outside. I doubt if I can suffer here much longer and remain alive my dear. By day I cannot meet you, at night my madness brings me here to the tryst which you yourself made with me. I am here now, and where are you?