Welsh Journals

Then we talk for an hour by the kitchen fire, Talk of Dublin and sugar-beet and dialect, And of the youth I met one day Upon the bridge in Sligo, The youth who had never heard of Yeats or Innisfree Then in comes Martin Murphy from the rain, Mr. Murphy the tourist from Birmingham, With-his sentimental praise of the Irish weather The lamp is lit, and I listen to the far sea-murmur, And I think of the mists along the broken coast, The cry of the sea-fowl, and I wonder If the sea fowl are really sorrowful, And I remember the beautiful prose of Synge And somehow believe he is not dead. IDRIS DAVIES. Tiger Bay I WATCHED the coloured seamen in the morning mist, Slouching along the damp brown street, Cursing and laughing in the dismal dawn. The sea had grumbled through the night, Small yellow lights had flickered far and near, Huge chains clattered on the ice-cold quays, And daylight had seemed a hundred years away But slowly the long cold night retreated Behind the cranes and masts and funnels, The sea-signals wailed beyond the harbour And seabirds came suddenly out of the mist. And six coloured seamen came slouching along With the laughter of the Levant in their eyes And contempt in their tapering hands. Their coffee was waiting in some smoKe-laden den, With smooth yellow dice on the unswept table, And behind the dirty green window No lazy dream of Africa or Arabia or India, Nor any dreary dockland morning, Would mar one minute for them. IDRIS DAVIES.