Y Fendigaid Fair / The Blessed Mary

This is a poem in Welsh with a translation into English in which the author, former miner and librarian Einion Evans (1926 –), a Nonconformist, makes a tender and perceptive apology for his own and for his contemporaries' lack of reverence for the Virgin Mary. In so doing he speaks for so many of us, Catholic and Protestant.

The Blessed Mary

We turned our backs on you, Virgin Mary,
And respected you less than a rag doll from a fair;
In the blazing light of Christ and his eternal radiance
Our eyes were blinded to your great part.

Your sincerity we doubted a hundred times, yes,
And we treated you like some cheap local girl.
We had forgotten that you were God’s means
To place his only son among the living.

Your sleepless nights, who has counted them?
Your son was mocked, yet you loved Him more,
And no one but He and you can really know
What anguish was yours on Calvary.

Listen to us tonight in your heaven above,
Accept your due respect, holy virgin,
And forgive now every disrespectful word
That came from our lips, O Blessed Mary.

Y Fendigaid Fair

Troisom ein cefnau arnat, Forwyn Fair,
A’th barchu’n llai na doli glwt o ffair;
Yng ngolau llachar Crist a’i fythol wawr
Dallwyd ein llygaid i’th gyfraniad mawr.

Amheuwyd ganwaith dy ddidwylledd, do,
A gwnaethpwyd di fel merched rhad y fro.
Anghofiwyd mai tydi oedd cyfrwng Duw
I ddod a’i unig fab i blith y byw.

Dy nosau effro, ‘oes a’i rhifodd hwy?
Gwawdiwyd dy fab, ond ceraist Ef yn fwy,
Ac ni wyr neb yn iawn ond Ef a thi
Pa ingoedd ddaeth i’th ran ar Galfari.

Gwrando ni heno yn dy nef uwchben,
Derbyn dy barch dyledus, forwyn wen,
A maddau’n awr bob rhyw amharchus air
Ddaeth dros ein gwefus, o Fendigaid Fair.

©: Einion Evans, 1969.