The Grief

It is my fill of sorrow among the black glens,

That stript of light I grope through days gone blind;

Ah, Muiris, you are the grief that wandered my voice And left me with this broken mind.

You walked the blue mountains in an air of stars, While the cuckoos barked before you to dawn-rise; But, Muiris O’Ruane, I have taken my death

In the love you gave me then with dark lies.

In your step I saw no darkness and so I left

The sun by one green gable of a pine wood,

And broke sour nuts of wisdom on a sweet tooth With you who quenched my girlhood.

This time, with the falling of sap, they cut the whitethorn; And now, Muiris, my own sister cuts down my life— O she, that dark looker by this window of tears, Breaks twin-bone and branch and is your wife!