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>Alun Lewis, (1915-1944), the remarkable poet and short >story writer, died, aged twenty-eight, in Burma in the >Second World War. Some critics see him as the last of >the great Romantic poets, a twentieth century Keats. >Others describe his poetry as the path from pre-war >Yeats and Auden to post-war poets like Hughes and >Gunn. In Wales there are those who think his greater >versatility and finer intelligence place him above his >contemporaries Dylan Thomas and R.S. Thomas. > >Born and brought up near Aberdare in South Wales, the >son of teachers, Lewis read history at Aberystwyth and >Manchester. Early in 1940, after a brief period >teaching and despite his pacifist inclination, he >enlisted in the Royal Engineers. In the following year >he joined the South Wales Borderers and travelled to >the war in India. Becoming a soldier had a stimulating >effect on Lewis's writing: Raiders' Dawn, a collection >of forty-seven poems, appeared in 1942 and early in >1943, The Last Inspection, a book of short stories, >was published, both to considerable critical acclaim. >In March 1944, Lewis died in an accident on active >service in Burma. His second volume of poems, Ha! Ha! >Among the Trumpets, was published in 1945 and his >Indian short stories, together with some letters, In >The Green Tree (1948). > >This lovely unforgetable melancholic poem is surely a >timeless universal dedication to all lovers who have >been parted by the cruelties of war. > >At this link you can listen online to this and many >other classic and original sound poems set to music.. > >http://tinyurl.com/56gha > >Regards. > >Jim Clark > >PS..Dont forget you can if you prefer listen to many >of my my sound poems at my Yahoo "sound poetry" web >group (look in "files") heres that link.. # > >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloozman_uk/ > > >All rights are reserved on this sound >recording/copyright/patent Jim Clark 2004 > > > > >GOODBYE > >So we must say Goodbye, my darling, >And go, as lovers go, for ever; >Tonight remains, to pack and fix on labels >And make an end of lying down together. > >I put a final shilling in the gas, >And watch you slip your dress below your knees >And lie so stlil I hear your rustling comb >Modulate the autumn in the trees. > >And all the countless things I shall remember >Lay mummy-cloths of silence round my head; >I fill the carafe with a drink of water; >You say 'We paid a guinea for this bed,' > >And then, 'We'll leave some gas, a little warmth >For the next resident, and these dry flowers,' >And turn your face away, afraid to speak >The big word, that Eternity is ours. > >Your kisses close my eyes and yet you stare >As though god struck a child with nameless fears; >Perhaps the water glitters and discloses >Time's chalice and its limpid useless tears. > >Everything we renounce except our selves; >Selfishness is the last of all to go; >Our sighs are exhalations of the earth, >Our footprints leave a track across the snow. > >We made the universe to be our home, >Our nostrils took the wind to be our breath, >Our hearts are massive towers of delight, >We stride across the seven seas of death. > >Yet when all's done you'll keep the emerald >I placed upon your finger in the street; >And I will keep the patches that you sewed >On my old battledress tonight, my sweet.

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