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Robert Graves - Letter To S.S. From Mametz Wood
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I never dreamed we’d meet that day  
In our old haunts down Fricourt way,  
Plotting such marvellous journeys there  
For jolly old “Après-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 God: there’s a blue bay  
Shining 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 passed 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 Söar 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 hit 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 sunshine 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 God 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 pass
Will make us vocal with Kavasse.  
In old Bagdad we’ll call a halt  
At the Sâshuns’ 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.  
Hobnobbing with the Chungs and Mings,
And doing wild, tremendous things  
In free adventure, quest and fight,  
And God! what poetry we’ll write!
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