Home ⇒ 📌Robert Graves ⇒ Welsh Incident
Welsh Incident
‘But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.’
‘What were they? Mermaids? dragons? ghosts?’
‘Nothing at all of any things like that.’
‘What were they, then?’
‘All sorts of queer things,
Things never seen or heard or written about,
Very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar
Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch,
Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation,
All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes,
All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour,
Though all came moving slowly out together.’
‘Describe just one of them.’
‘I am unable.’
‘What were their colours?’
‘Mostly nameless colours,
Colours you’d like to see; but one was puce
Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.
Some had no colour.’
‘Tell me, had
‘Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.’
‘But did these things come out in any order?’
What o’clock was it? What was the day of the week?
Who else was present? How was the weather?’
‘I was coming to that. It was half-past three
On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thrity-seven shimmering instruments
Collecting for Caernarvon’s (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth’s mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward
Silently at a snail’s pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder
Did something recognizably a something.’
‘Well, what?’
‘It made a noise.’
‘A frightening noise?’
‘No, no.’
‘A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?’
‘No, but a very loud, respectable noise –
Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning
In Chapel, close before the second psalm.’
‘What did the mayor do?’
‘I was coming to that.’
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- A Welsh Testament All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls Of cloud for at least half the year. My word for heaven was not yours. The word for hell had a sharp edge Put […]...
- Welsh experience called out by the sun This easter saturday morning I’m sitting on a bank In pistyllgwyn (house of the sacred spring) Against a tall oak (close to a daffodil-clump) Overlooking the road Between brechfa and abergorlech On the west side of the valley Of the afon cothi Reading a poem by taliesin From the sixth […]...
- Incident Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee; I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.” I saw the whole of Balimore From May until December; […]...
- Incident Of The French Camp I. You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away, On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind. II. Just as perhaps he mused ”My plans ”That soar, to earth […]...
- Seaside Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band, The crowd’s good laughter, the loved eyes of men, I am drawn nightward; I must turn again Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand, There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown The old unquiet ocean. All the shade Is rife with magic and movement. I […]...
- Fellow Citizens I DRANK musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with The millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter One night And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker, He spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had A peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere. Then I heard Jim Kirch […]...
- The Mayor of Gary I ASKED the Mayor of Gary about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week. And the Mayor of Gary answered more workmen steal time on the job in Gary than any other place in the United States. “Go into the plants and you will see men sitting around doing nothing-machinery does everything,” said the Mayor […]...
- The Welsh Marches High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam Islanded in Severn stream; The bridges from the steepled crest Cross the water east and west. The flag of morn in conqueror’s state Enters at the English gate: The vanquished eve, as night prevails, Bleeds upon the road to Wales. Ages since the vanquished bled Round my mother’s marriage-bed; […]...
- Welsh Landscape To live in Wales is to be conscious At dusk of the spilled blood That went into the making of the wild sky, Dyeing the immaculate rivers In all their courses. It is to be aware, Above the noisy tractor And hum of the machine Of strife in the strung woods, Vibrant with sped arrows. […]...
- Colours in lamplight Colours in lamplight are previews, Scarcely eschewed as wave-length turbulence Tuned to closeness and friendship. Colours in firelight are skin-warmed Glowings, harbouring contentment, Revealing intuitive insight. Colours in moonlight are barely shown Shy smiles recalled with eidetic Intensity from reservoirs of sight. Colours in candlelight are filigree Reflections, decorative shimmers Of sympathetic enchantment. But in […]...
- Moving On In this war we’re always moving, Moving on; When we make a friend another friend has gone; Should a woman’s kindly face Make us welcome for a space, Then it’s boot and saddle, boys, we’re Moving on. In the hospitals they’re moving, Moving on; They’re here today, tomorrow they are gone; When the bravest and […]...
- Dream Song 73: Karensui, Ryoan-ji The taxi makes the vegetables fly. ‘Dozo kudasai,’ I have him wait. Past the bright lake up into the temple, Shoes off, and My right leg swings me left. I do survive beside the garden I Came seven thousand mile the other way Supplied of energies all to see, to see. Differ them photographs, plans […]...
- That odd old man is dead a year That odd old man is dead a year We miss his stated Hat. ‘Twas such an evening bright and stiff His faded lamp went out. Who miss his antiquated Wick Are any hoar for him? Waits any indurated mate His wrinkled coming Home? Oh Life, begun in fluent Blood And consummated dull! Achievement contemplating thee […]...
- LOVERS HOW THEY COME AND PART A Gyges ring they bear about them still, To be, and not seen when and where they will; They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall, They fall like dew, and make no noise at all: So silently they one to th’ other come, As colours steal into the pear or plum, And air-like, […]...
- Everybody Knows (co-written by Sharon Robinson) Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows that the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows that the boat […]...
- Not to sleep Not to sleep all the night long, for pure joy, Counting no sheep and careless of chimes Welcoming the dawn confabulation Of birch, her children, who discuss idly Fanciful details of the promised coming – Will she be wearing red, or russet, or blue, Or pure white? – whatever she wears, glorious: Not to sleep […]...
- A Solitary Chestnut Il buon tempo verrà! A solitary chestnut, Bold in the cold, Hibernating under A gigantic white sheet Is perseverance Keeping busy To welcome The coming Of Spring...
- You Asked How (formerly Even Now She Is Turning, Saying Everything I Always Wanted Her to Say) At the end there were straws In her glove compartment, I’d split them open To taste the familiar bitter residue, near the end I ate all her Percodans, hungry to know How far they could take me. A bottle of red wine each night moved her along As she wrote, I feel too much, again […]...
- Deeply Morbid Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters Always out of office hours running with her social betters But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her It was that look within her eye Why […]...
- You'll know Her by Her Foot You’ll know Her by Her Foot The smallest Gamboge Hand With Fingers where the Toes should be Would more affront the Sand Than this Quaint Creature’s Boot Adjusted by a Stern Without a Button I could vouch Unto a Velvet Limb You’ll know Her by Her Vest Tight fitting Orange Brown Inside a Jacket duller […]...
- When the new year when the new year Came out of nowhere And peeped into rooms It was so flattered to find All the tv’s drinking its health Praising its innocent appearance It responded with its warm Dark smile and went round Filling people’s dry hearts With joy Over the coming weeks though Those same tv’s attacked it Criticising […]...
- The singing dog when the dog began to sing The people ran amok A man shinned up a flagpole A woman chewed her sock Children danced the drainpipe A policeman robbed a bank The mayor and all the councillors Fired doughnuts from a tank The queen embraced the dustman The clergy showed their knees Librarians in their thousands […]...
- Parting THERE’S no use in weeping, Though we are condemned to part: There’s such a thing as keeping A remembrance in one’s heart: There’s such a thing as dwelling On the thought ourselves have nurs’d, And with scorn and courage telling The world to do its worst. We’ll not let its follies grieve us, We’ll just […]...
- Thought Thought, I love thought. But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas I despise that self-important game. Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness, Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness, Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read, Thought […]...
- And The Piper Dreams And the Piper dreams as he pipes up in his mind Colours in choral horizons distant, of courtliness dimmed in time, At the puddling waters edge he stands spread square and neat And blows a lambent dirge, a frisson to the hatchling-surf Sundering and dying at his sandy feet. Into the bile green sea he […]...
- A Leave-Taking Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear. Let us go hence together without fear; Keep silence now, for singing-time is over, And over all old things and all things dear. She loves not you nor me as all we love her. Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear, She would […]...
- The Waiting Silence has no zen today. Ambient freeway noise From ј mile away, The occasional Friday nighter Coming home 2:00 a. m. Saturday, The appliances with two-tone hums, The bumping and grinding Of an old swamp cooler, A distant train, Forces what has been pushed back To break through. My father needs O 2 All the […]...
- The Torrent I found a torrent falling in a glen Where the sun’s light shone silvered and leaf-split; The boom, the foam, and the mad flash of it All made a magic symphony; but when I thought upon the coming of hard men To cut those patriarchal trees away, And turn to gold the silver of that […]...
- People Who Live People who live by the sea Understand eternity. They copy the curves of the waves, Their hearts beat with the tides, & the saltiness of their blood Corresponds with the sea. They know that the house of flesh Is only a sandcastle Built on the shore, That skin breaks Under the waves Like sand under […]...
- In The Foam Life swelleth in a whitening wave, And dasheth thee and me apart. I sweep out seaward: be thou brave. And reach the shore, Sweetheart. Beat back the backward-thrusting sea. Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart, Christ buffet the wild surge for thee Till thou’rt ashore, Sweetheart. Ah, now thy face grows dim apace, […]...
- View Of The Capitol From The Library Of Congress Moving from left to left, the light Is heavy on the Dome, and coarse. One small lunette turns it aside And blankly stares off to the side Like a big white old wall-eyed horse. On the east steps the Air Force Band In uniforms of Air Force blue Is playing hard and loud, but queer […]...
- Dreams Nascent My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm; An endless tapestry the past has women drapes The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform. The surface of dreams is broken, The picture of the past is shaken and scattered. Fluent, active figures of men […]...
- The Travellers' Curse after Misdirection (from the Welsh) May they stumble, stage by stage On an endless Pilgrimage Dawn and dusk, mile after mile At each and every step a stile At each and every step withal May they catch their feet and fall At each and every fall they take May a bone within them break And may the […]...
- Fisherman jim's kids Fisherman Jim lived on the hill With his bonnie wife an’ his little boys; ‘T wuz “Blow, ye winds, as blow ye will – Naught we reck of your cold and noise!” For happy and warm were he an’ his, And he dandled his kids upon his knee To the song of the sea. Fisherman […]...
- First We Take Manhattan They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I’m guided by a signal in the heavens I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin I’m guided by the beauty of our […]...
- Dunes WHAT do we see here in the sand dunes of the white Moon alone with our thoughts, Bill, Alone with our dreams, Bill, soft as the women tying Scarves around their heads dancing, Alone with a picture and a picture coming one after the Other of all the dead, The dead more than all these […]...
- The Lost Dancer Spatial depths of being survive The birth to death recurrences Of feet dancing on earth of sand; Vibrations of the dance survive The sand; the sand, elect, survives The dancer. He can find no source Of magic adequate to bind The sand upon his feet, his feet Upon his dance, his dance upon The diamond […]...
- Summer Sonata The sun sizes it up A fast grey machine Lopes like the wolf Stashed among trees Insouciant as the wind Heard but once a year Sighing cryptic litanies Fomenting everything You see it like this Pregnant with cause You do not look again Until the din is slick with dew And the false movement within […]...
- Because my Brook is fluent Because my Brook is fluent I know ’tis dry Because my Brook is silent It is the Sea And startled at its rising I try to flee To where the Strong assure me Is “no more Sea”...
- Many Soldiers The idea danced before us as a flag; The sound of martial music; The thrill of carrying a gun; Advancement in the world on coming home; A glint of glory, wrath for foes; A dream of duty to country or to God. But these were things in ourselves, shining before us, They were not the […]...