Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Notes

Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by a
♦ symbol in the text. The change description is shown immediately
below the paragraph or section in which the correction appears.

Details and other notes may be found at the end of this text.

GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

POEMS (1914–1927) _William Heinemann_
POEMS (1929) _The Seizin Press_
MY HEAD, MY HEAD _Marlin Seeker_
LAWRENCE AND THE ARABS _Jonathan Cape_
LARS PORSENAZ OR THE FUTURE OF SWEARING _Kegan Paul_
THE SHOUT _Elkin, Mathews and Marrot_

GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT

An Autobiography

BY

ROBERT GRAVES

JONATHAN CAPE THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE LONDON

FIRST PUBLISHED 1929 SECOND IMPRESSION NOVEMBER 1929

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY J. AND J. GRAY EDINBURGH

MY DEDICATION IS AN EPILOGUE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Robert Graves, 1929 _Frontispiece_

Cuinchy Brick-stacks seen from a British trench on the Givenchy canal-bank. The white placarded brick-stack is in the British support line; the ones beyond are held by the Germans. The village of Auchy is seen in the distance. (_By courtesy of the Imperial War Museum._) _To face page_ 152

Trench Map showing the Cambrin-Cuinchy-Vermelles Trench Sector in the summer of 1915. Each square-side measures 500 yards and is ticked off into 50-yard units. Only the German trench-system is shown in detail; a broken pencil-line marks the approximate course of the British front trench. The minecraters appear as stars in No Man’s Land. The brick-stacks in the German line appear as minute squares; those held by the British are not marked. The intended line of advance of the 19th Brigade on September 25th is shown in pencil on this map, which is the one that I carried on that day 190

Maps. (_Reproduced by the courtesy of the Imperial War Museum._)

Somme Trench Map—The Fricourt Sector, 1916. This map fits against the map facing page 262 246

Somme Trench Map—Mametz Wood and High Wood, 1916. This map fits against the map facing page 246 _To face page_ 262

Robert Graves, from a pastel by Eric Kennington 296

Various Records, mostly self-explanatory. The Court of Inquiry mentioned in the bottom left-hand message was to decide whether the wound of a man in the Public Schools Battalion—a rifle-shot through his foot—was self-inflicted or accidental. It was self-inflicted. B. Echelon meant the part of the battalion not in the trenches. Idol was the code-name for the Second Battalion the Royal Welch Fusiliers. The notebook leaf is the end of my 1915 diary only three weeks after I began it; I used my letters home as a diary after that. The message about Sergeant Varcoe was from Captain Samson shortly before his death; I was temporarily attached to his company 322

1929, The Second Battalion the Royal Welch Fusiliers back to pre-war soldiering. The regimental Royal goat, the regimental goat-major and the regimental pioneers (wearing white leather aprons and gauntlets—a special regimental privilege) on church parade at Wiesbaden on the Rhine. The band follows, regimentally. The goat has a regimental number and draws rations like a private soldier. ‘Some speak of Alexander, and some of Hercules....’ _To face page_ 364

WORLD’S END

The tympanum is worn thin.
The iris is become transparent.
The sense has overlasted.
Sense itself is transparent.
Speed has caught up with speed.
Earth rounds out earth.
The mind puts the mind by.
Clear spectacle: where is the eye?

All is lost, no danger
Forces the heroic hand.
No bodies in bodies stand
Oppositely. The complete world
Is likeness in every corner.
The names of contrast fall
Into the widening centre.
A dry sea extends the universal.

No suit and no denial
Disturb the general proof.
Logic has logic, they remain
Quiet in each other’s arms,
Or were otherwise insane,
With all lost and nothing to prove
That even nothing can be through love.

LAURA RIDING

(From _Love as Love, Death as Death_)

GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT