CYMRU

In celebration of at last, after all those years, setting foot on Welsh soil (only 24 hours, but what a day), I thought I would put up a Welsh poem -- which, being Welsh, is a song. It is known by heart by two sets of people, Welshmen and rugby fans, but unknown to the rest of the world. Being Welsh, it is not just a song but a hymn; but oddly enough it has also become a rugby-fan song, sung by crowds of several thousand, and one website describes it as "Wales' second National Anthem". It was written by Daniel James, a steel puddler who assumed the bardic name of Gwyrosydd, and its music was by John Hughes, a miner who became an organist and composer, and who also wrote the famous "Cwm Rhondda".

Daniel James

John Hughes

         

CALON LÂN

Nid wy’n gofyn bywyd moethus,
Aur y byd na’i berlau mân:
Gofyn wyf am galon hapus,
Calon onest, calon lân.

Calon lân yn llawn daioni,
Tecach yw na’r lili dlos:
Dim ond calon lân all ganu –
Canu’r dydd a chanu’r nos.

Pe dymunwn olud bydol,
Chwim adenydd iddo sydd;
Golud calon lân, rinweddol,
Yn dwyn bythol elw fydd.

Hwyr a bore fy nymuniad
Esgyn ar adenydd cân
Ar i Dduw, er mwyn fy Ngheidwad,
Roddi i mi galon lân.

Translation:

I don’t ask for a luxurious life,
the world’s gold or its fine pearls:
I ask for a happy heart,
an honest heart, a pure heart.

A pure heart is full of goodness,
More lovely than the pretty lily:
Only a pure heart can sing -
Sing day and night.

If I wished worldly wealth,
He has a swift seed;
The riches of a virtuous, pure heart,
Will be a perpetual profit.

Late and early, my wish
Rises on the wing of song,
For God, for the sake of my Saviour,
To give me a pure heart.

And the most purely beautiful rendering of it is here, by the Welsh harpist and singer Siân James.

(If you listen to her while looking at the text, you can see some of the oddities (for us) of Welsh pronunciation: "u" is pronounced as "ee", "y" as short "eh" near the beginning of a word and as "ee" near the end, and the initial "c" can be a hard "c", a Scottish "ch" or a voiced "g" depending on what comes before it.)