(The Little Saucepan) <br /> <br /> <br />Four collier lads from Ebbw Vale <br />Took shelter from a shower of hail, <br />And there beneath a spreading tree <br />Attuned their mouths to harmony. <br /> <br />With smiling joy on every face <br />Two warbled tenor, two sang bass, <br />And while the leaves above them hissed with <br />Rough hail, they started 'Aberystwyth.' <br /> <br />Old Parry's hymn, triumphant, rich, <br />They changed through with even pitch, <br />Till at the end of their grand noise <br />I called: 'Give us the 'Sospan' boys!' <br /> <br />Who knows a tune so soft, so strong, <br />So pitiful as that 'Saucepan' song <br />For exiled hope, despaired desire <br />Of lost souls for their cottage fire? <br /> <br />Then low at first with gathering sound <br />Rose their four voices, smooth and round, <br />Till back went Time: once more I stood <br />With Fusiliers in Mametz Wood. <br /> <br />Fierce burned the sun, yet cheeks were pale, <br />For ice hail they had leaden hail; <br />In that fine forest, green and big, <br />There stayed unbroken not one twig. <br /> <br />They sang, they swore, they plunged in haste, <br />Stumbling and shouting through the waste; <br />The little 'Saucepan' flamed on high, <br />Emblem of hope and ease gone by. <br /> <br />Rough pit-boys from the coaly South, <br />They sang, even in the cannon's mouth; <br />Like Sunday's chapel, Monday's inn, <br />The death-trap sounded with their din. <br /> <br />*** <br /> <br />The storm blows over, Sun comes out, <br />The choir breaks up with jest and shout, <br />With what relief I watch them part-- <br />Another note would break my heart!<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sospan-fach/
