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 "Aprs-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 Sar 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 Sshuns' 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!