sam!

And now, you are dead - being young and fair, you were of mortal birth. Your form was soft, your charms so rare; too soon they returned to Earth! Though the Earth welcomed you home again, and over your grave people easily walk, there is one person who cannot bear to look at that spot: me. So I won't try to find where you lie dead, or even look at the Earth there; flowers might grow over it, but also perhaps ugly weeds, so I won't dare to find out. I do not need to see it; it's painful enough to know that the beautiful thing I loved so much, and will love for the rest of my life, can rot like any other common living thing. I do not need a formal gravestone to prove that I loved you so very much. And yet, I did love you, until the very end, as fervently as you loved me - your love did not change in all the time we knew each other, and can never grow again, because you are dead. Death has made that certain; age will not change your love, a rival will not steal it from me, and no lies will deny it; but worst of all, you will no longer ever notice, or deny, or try to change anything about me; you will never again hold me to task for my own bad behaviour, because you are gone. The best part of life belonged to us, and now, the worst part will be mine to bear alone. The sun that shone and the storm that blew are things you will never feel again. And I envy you, my love, the calm and dreamless sleep of death - I envy it too much to even cry. And yet I cannot yearn or despair that everything wondrous about you is gone, those things I might have watched slowly fade over time, had you lived a long life... So fate goes, that the flower that is in youthful bloom must be the first to fall; but in time, the flower's leaves would fall, too. Perhaps it might have been a greater grief to watch you die slowly than to see you fall in the prime of your life; I'm not sure I could have stood it, to see you slowly fade into illness and pain, to see your beauty fade into wizened old age. But I'll never know, because your fair days have been cut short, and you were indeed lovely until the last breath. Your life was extinguished rather than slowly decayed; just like a comet, you burned fast and bright. If I was still capable of shedding tears, I might cry that I was not able to protect you, that I am not able to stand vigil over your grave, or to gaze fondly on your beautiful face, to fold you into a tight embrace, and hold up your drooping head, and show you the feeling of love that, however vain and inadequate it was, neither of us will ever experience again. So now, with you gone, I am free - but what a price it is to pay, what a terrible prize to win, because everything that remains alive reminds me of you! Therefore you can never truly die, will never truly be gone, because everything about you will remain with me for eternity. And what's more, your love is not truly gone, despite your death; it has transcended the years you lived and become a part of undying infinity.

I think my favourite lines are this:

The love where Death has set his seal,

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see

Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

Ellwood starts the correspondence by seeking Gaunt's training camp address, but he always follows Gaunt's lead in terms of the formality of their greeting and sign off. Gaunt is the first to change things - he probably doesn't realise that, in protecting himself, he is being the more dominant one in their dynamic.

Dear Gaunt ... Affectionately, Ellwood

(13th Jan 1915) (the 'reaching out after Fox's Bridge' letter)

->

Dear Ellwood ... With affection, Gaunt

(26th Jan 1915) (the 'pretending not to care' letter)

Dear Gaunt ... With affection, Ellwood

(1st Feb 1915) (the 'things are fine life is great p.s. i love you' letter)

->

Dear Ellwood ... Your friend, Gaunt

(16th Feb 1915) (the 'just arrived at the front oh god what have I done' Letter Of Regret)

Dear Gaunt ... Your friend, Ellwood

(1st March 1915) (the 'the front sounds grand but listen to this Preshute goss' letter)

->

Dear Ellwood ... Gaunt

(11th March 1915) (the 'making Ellwood jealous by talking about David and then signing off with only my name and also telling Sandys that this is exactly what I did' letter)

Dear Gaunt ... Ellwood

(24th March 1915) (the truly devastating letter about Ellwood's burnt poems... the sad little 'Ellwood' sign off :(

->

Dear Elly ... Yours, Gaunt

(11th April 1915) (the 'you are the poetry' letter that is basically a love confession. Gaunt changes both greeting and sign off cos when shit gets real that boy levels up, but it took him an extra day to write this letter after receiving it - he had already written back to Sandys about it the day before!)

Dear Gaunt ... Yours, Elly

(15th April 1915) (the 'I'm madly in love with you, you beautiful poetic idiot' letter)

->

Ellwood ... Gaunt

(20th April 1915) (the 'Maitland told us to stop or we'll get killed but I won't say this so I'll just say shut up and accidentally break your heart' letter)

unprompted

->

Dear Ellwood... Yours, Gaunt

(29th April 1915) (the Battle of Ypres letter of Truth, aka. the second love confession)

Dear Henry ... Your (appropriate) friend, Sidney

(7th May 1915) (the 'I might be your sub but I can also speak my mind when necessary so get a load of me training to join you at the front with a side of our intimate Christian names because I'm changing the narrative' letter. Immaculate combo of textual devotion + subtextual sass)

->

Ellwood ... Gaunt

(18th May 1915) (the 'he's coming to the front oh god what have I done' Letter Of Regret, second edition)

Dear Gaunt ... Ellwood

(31st May 1915) (the 'lol training is fun and nothing is wrong' letter)

->

denied

Dear Gaunt ... Ellwood

(14th June 1915) (the 'are we still friends lol' letter - also Ellwood writes to Maud to ask the same thing about Henry then denies her letter in turn, why are Elly and Gaunt always in a 'who is more savage' competition)

->

denied

Gaunt ... Ellwood

(2nd July 1915) (the 'I may be your sub but I'm not a sub but I'm also your hopeless sub forever obviously' letter)

->

denied

---

And the last two, a couplet if you will:

My dearest, darling Sidney,

->

Dear Henry ... Yours, always, Sidney

---

(bonus: Gaunt and Sandys' sign offs:)

Dear Sandys... Sincerely, Gaunt -> Dear Gaunt ... Yours, Sandys

Dear Sandys... Sincerely, Gaunt -> Dear Gaunt ... Sandys