Welsh+Incident

** Welsh Incident **

//Robert Graves// (1895 - 1985)

“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.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“I am unable.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“What were their colours?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“Mostly nameless colours,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Colours you’d like to see; but one was puce

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Some had no colour.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“Tell me, had they legs?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“But did these things come out in any order?

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">What o’clock was it? What was the day of the week?

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Who else was present? What was the weather?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“I was coming to that. It was half-past three

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">On thirty-seven shimmering instruments,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Collecting for Carnarvon’s (Fever) Hospital Fund.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">The populations of Pwlheli, Criccieth,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Were all assembled. Criccieth’s mayor addressed them

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Silently at a snail’s pace. But at last

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">The most odd, indescribable thing of all

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Which hardly one man there could see for wonder

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Did something recognizably a something.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“Well, what?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“It made a noise.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“A frightening noise?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“No, no.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“No, but a very loud, respectable noise –

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">In Chapel, close before the second psalm.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“What did the mayor do?”

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Georgia,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">“I was coming to that.”