Welsh Journals

Inside; a poem Wales England wed, so was I bred I dreamt of love-and fame. I strove And Irish eyes, and London cries, What more than these I asked of life Sad to think that in Dublin on a Thursday afternoon at Jack Yeats' 'salon,' both J. B. Yeats and O'Faolain talked to me of him, the painter particularly evoked a tender and charming nostalgia in his often enter- taining and lively reminiscences of E.R." and Masefield, and of how his brother Arthur had struck up a friendship with the present Poet Laureate in New York before the second prodigal son's tragic end at a wayside farm along the banks of the Hudson. If Ireland taught Ernest Rhys the most important and supreme thing as a human being, she also taught him something else besides as a man-of-letters-to love his own country and its heritage-Wales, the Principality without a Prince, as he refers to his spiritual homeland in his autobiography Wales England Wed, perhaps hardly the best of book-titles Somewhere among our scattered papers I have notes of how E.R. struck me during the late Spring and early Summer of 1940-from the moment I first met him on an uphill climb in the middle of the road- the clear blue road overlooking Carmarthen Bay. There stood an old, old man. He stood there awhile just long enough for me to realise that he was used to public attention Mr. ERNEST RHYS. But with another voice younger than his ought to be. Indeed, the most appealing thing about it was its two-toned vibration, essentially an emotional voice, soft, that carried far. Such a strange thing occurred. I feel I was guided here. I was straining up the hill wondering where Llanybri was situated and where exactly you lived. I saw rather a pleasant young man coming over the hill so I thought I might stop and question him. Can you please tell me where the poet lives ? And of course it was you A few days afterwards we received a bookcover.. A tantalising gift. When we asked him about this he said "Ah, that's because the book is not out yet." At that time he was working on the Everyman Synge and used to discuss Synge's work with us and ask us which selections we favoured. Also for recommendations for the next hundred for the Everyman list; I remember drawing up a long sheet of suggested titles for inclusion.' Then he lived in digs at Phoenix House, Llanstephan. Soon through local pull we managed to get him in at a first-class guest- house where he could enjoy a feeling of space, greater comfort, and, above all, peace. Often he would walk the two miles to spend a day with us at Llanybri. Days passed, weeks, pleasurably, we met at his old Carmarthen home, at the place where his grandfather's bookshop stood in King Street, where as a boy he sat in the cave under the counter devouring paper-backed books, morsels of cold roast duck and gooseberry pie. We suspected he had come back to visit his old boyhood haunts, alone and carefree, and to die. We met in cold grey evenings, peculiar 'twas merry London gave me breath. but Ireland taught me love was best. and streams of Wales, may tell the rest. I am content to have from Death. E.R.