Fairies and Fusiliers Part 2

SORLEY'S WEATHER

When outside the icy rain Comes leaping helter-skelter, Shall I tie my restive brain Snugly under shelter?

Shall I make a gentle song Here in my firelit study, When outside the winds blow strong And the lanes are muddy?

With old wine and drowsy meats Am I to fill my belly?

Shall I glutton here with Keats?

Shall I drink with Sh.e.l.ley?

Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good: Poetry makes both better.

Clay is wet and so is mud, Winter rains are wetter.

Yet rest there, Sh.e.l.ley, on the sill, For though the winds come frorely, I'm away to the rain-blown hill And the ghost of Sorley.

THE COTTAGE

Here in turn succeed and rule Carter, smith, and village fool, Then again the place is known As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school; Now somehow it's come to me To light the fire and hold the key, Here in Heaven to reign alone.

All the walls are white with lime, Big blue periwinkles climb And kiss the crumbling window-sill; Snug inside I sit and rhyme, Planning, poem, book, or fable, At my darling beech-wood table Fresh with bluebells from the hill.

Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and b.u.mble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead.

But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door.

Look, he's got a great new net, And when my fighting starts afresh Stouter cord and smaller mesh Won't be cheated as before.

Nor can kindliness of Spring, Flowers that smile nor birds that sing.

b.u.mble-bee nor b.u.t.terfly, Nor gra.s.sy hill nor anything Of magic keep me safe to rhyme In this Heaven beyond my time.

No! for Death is waiting by.

THE LAST POST

The bugler sent a call of high romance-- "Lights out! Lights out!" to the deserted square.

On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer, "G.o.d, if it's _this_ for me next time in France ...

O spare the phantom bugle as I lie Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns, Dead in a row with the other broken ones Lying so stiff and still under the sky, Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die."

WHEN I'M KILLED

When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good.

And there's one thing that I know well, I'm d.a.m.ned if I'll be d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l!

So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or h.e.l.l, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore.

You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read.

So when I'm killed, don't mourn for me, Shot, poor lad, so bold and young, Killed and gone--don't mourn for me.

On your lips my life is hung: O friends and lovers, you can save Your playfellow from the grave.

LETTER TO S.S. FROM MAMETZ WOOD

I never dreamed we'd meet that day In our old haunts down Fricourt way, Plotting such marvellous journeys there For jolly old "Apres-la-guerre."

Well, when it's over, first we'll meet At Gweithdy Bach, my country seat In Wales, a curious little shop With two rooms and a roof on top, A sort of Morlancourt-ish billet That never needs a crowd to fill it.

But oh, the country round about!

The sort of view that makes you shout For want of any better way Of praising G.o.d: there's a blue bay s.h.i.+ning in front, and on the right Snowden and Hebog capped with white, And lots of other jolly peaks That you could wonder at for weeks, With jag and spur and hump and cleft.

There's a grey castle on the left, And back in the high Hinterland You'll see the grave of Shawn Knarlbrand, Who slew the savage Buffaloon By the Nant-col one night in June, And won his surname from the horn Of this prodigious unicorn.

Beyond, where the two Rhinogs tower, Rhinog Fach and Rhinog Fawr, Close there after a four years' chase From Thessaly and the woods of Thrace, The beaten Dog-cat stood at bay And growled and fought and pa.s.sed away.

You'll see where mountain conies grapple With prayer and creed in their rock chapel Which Ben and Claire once built for them; They call it Soar Bethlehem.

You'll see where in old Roman days, Before Revivals changed our ways, The Virgin 'scaped the Devil's grab, Printing her foot on a stone slab With five clear toe-marks; and you'll find The fiendish thumbprint close behind.

You'll see where Math, Mathonwy's son, Spoke with the wizard Gwydion And bad him from South Wales set out To steal that creature with the snout, That new-discovered grunting beast Divinely flavoured for the feast.

No traveller yet has. .h.i.t upon A wilder land than Meirion, For desolate hills and tumbling stones, Bogland and melody and old bones.

Fairies and ghosts are here galore, And poetry most splendid, more Than can be written with the pen Or understood by common men.

In Gweithdy Bach we'll rest awhile, We'll dress our wounds and learn to smile With easier lips; we'll stretch our legs, And live on bilberry tart and eggs, And store up solar energy, Basking in suns.h.i.+ne by the sea, Until we feel a match once more For _anything_ but another war.

So then we'll kiss our families, And sail across the seas (The G.o.d of Song protecting us) To the great hills of Caucasus.

Robert will learn the local _bat_ For billeting and things like that, If Siegfried learns the piccolo To charm the people as we go.

The jolly peasants clad in furs Will greet the Welch-ski officers With open arms, and ere we pa.s.s Will make us vocal with Kava.s.se.

In old Bagdad we'll call a halt At the Sashuns' ancestral vault; We'll catch the Persian rose-flowers' scent, And understand what Omar meant.

Bitlis and Mush will know our faces, Tiflis and Tomsk, and all such places.

Perhaps eventually we'll get Among the Tartars of Thibet.

Hobn.o.bbing with the Chungs and Mings, And doing wild, tremendous things In free adventure, quest and fight, And G.o.d! what poetry we'll write!

A DEAD BOCHE

To you who'd read my songs of War And only hear of blood and fame, I'll say (you've heard it said before) "War's h.e.l.l!" and if you doubt the same, Today I found in Mametz Wood A certain cure for l.u.s.t of blood:

Where, propped against a shattered trunk, In a great mess of things unclean, Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk With clothes and face a sodden green, Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired, Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.