First Time In [“After the dread tales ... ”]

After the dread tales and red yarns of the Line

Anything might have come to us; but the divine

Afterglow brought us up to a Welsh colony

Hiding in sandbag ditches, whispering consolatory

Soft foreign things. Then we were taken in

To low huts candle-lit, shaded close by slitten

Oilsheets, and there but boys gave us kind welcome,

So that we looked out as from the edge of home,

Sang us Welsh things, and changed all former notions

To human hopeful things. And the next day's guns

Nor any Line-pangs ever quite could blot out

That strangely beautiful entry to war's rout;

Candles they gave us, precious and shared over-rations—

Ulysses found little more in his wanderings without doubt.

'David of the White Rock', the 'Slumber Song' so soft, and that

Beautiful tune to which roguish words by Welsh pit boys

Are sung—but never more beautiful than here under the guns' noise.