[Pre-script]
I'm sorry that this is such a short & inadequate letter: I'll do much
better next time.

Lobster Pot
Mousehole
Cornwall
15th July [in pencil: 1937]

Dear Vernon,

If, in some weeks' time, you see a dog-like shape with a torn tail and a
spaniel eye, its tail between its legs, come cringing and snuffling up
Heatherslade gravel, it will be me; look carefully at its smarmy rump that
asks to be kicked, its trembling, penholding paw that scribbles, "kick
me," in the dust. It will deserve your anger. but, really, the Grief of
the Sea was this: I was fooling about with a copy of the poem, playing the
pleasant, time-wasting game of altering, unasked-for, somebody else's
work; and then, when I met Keidrych with the manuscript sI had collected,
blindly and carelessly I must have included among them the
for-my-own-benefit, not-to-be-shown copy instead of the original. I hope
you forgive me: that's the truth. I was worried when I saw the first
number of Wales, with that Thowdlerised version in it, and should, anyway,
in a few days have sent off an explanation to you. Further than that I
Cannot Go, but you may still kick me when we meet in Pennard again --- and
I'm hoping that will be soon.

Yes I thought "Wales" was good, too. I had actually very little myself to
do with the editing, though when Keidrych goes up to Cambridge next year I
shall probably --- and with you as colleague, or whatever it is, if you'd
be --- take it all over. And no more Nigel Heseltine when we do: he can
crawl back into the woodwork, or lift up his [deleted] stone again. And
wait until you see a review by Margiad Evans of Glyn Jones's stories in
the next number: I told Keidrych, quite truthfully, that it read as though
Miss Evans were being raped on the Blue Bed as she wrote the review.

My own news is very big and simple. I was married three days ago; to
Caitlin Macnamara; in Penzance registry office; with no money, no prospect
of money, no attendant friends or relatives, and in complete happiness.
We've been meaning to from the first day we met, and now we are free and
glad. We're moving next week --- for how long depends on several things,
but mostly on one --- to a studio some miles away, in Newlyn, a studio
above a fish-market & where gulls fly in to breakfast. But I shall be
trying to come home soon for at least a few daays, along with Caitlin: I
think you'll like very much, she looks like the princess on the top of a
Christmas tree, or like a stage Wendy; but for God's sake don't tell her
that.

    Write as soon as you can, and bless me.

    Love to all the family.

                            Yours always,
                            Dylan