that I heard you were not to be found.... I would sooner be stretched by
you with nothing under us but heather and rushes, than be listening to
the cuckoos that are stirring at the break of day.... I am in grief and
in sorrow since you slipped from me across the mearings.'

Another love poem, 'Mairin Stanton,' shows his habit of mixing
comparisons drawn from the classics with those drawn from nature:--

'There's a bright flower by the side of the road, and she beats
Deirdre in the beauty of her voice; or I might say Helen, Queen of
the Greeks, she for whose sake hundreds died at Troy.

'There is light and brightness in her as in those others; her
little mouth is as sweet as the cuckoo on the branch. You would not
find a mind like hers in any woman since the pearl died that was in
Ballylee.

'To see under the sky a woman settled like her walking on the road
on a fine sunny day, the light flashing from the whiteness of her
breast would give sight to a man without eyes.

'There is the love of hundreds in her face, and there is the
promise of the evening star. If she had been living in the time of
the gods, it is not Venus that would have had the apple.

'Her hair falls down below her knees, waving and winding to the
mouth of her shoes; her locks spread out wide and pale like dew,
they leave a brightness on the road behind her.

'She is the girl that has been taught the nicest of all whose eyes