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
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
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
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
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
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
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!
