Thursday 28th January 1943

Quiet afternoon, so after Abraham had tidied up and I'd had a wash in hot water (it was rainy and muddy outside) I entered two new rhymes into my notebook of “The Complete Verse of SJD, a poet unhonoured and unsung”. Neither are of the same class as “Full Circle”, “Lengthening Shadows” or “No Such Place”. “Tinkling Tune” is a weak sort of poem about one's first love and subsequent memories:

“... And if some tinkling tune was the theme
of his incoherent boyish dream...”

“Good-bye and Damn You” is another sort of regimental poem, like “Regimental Rhyme”. Not so good though; pretty staccato in style and irregular:

“Were we browned off
after two years there?
We had le cafard
too bad to care.
But – hell! - the heat
of khamsin days,
our tired feet, and flies always!...”

It concludes:

“We've come north now to pastures new
So, good-bye desert and damn you.”

Shall I write again and something better than those earlier this month? The more I look at these last two, the more feeble they seem. Hardly worth putting in the book, in fact!