_The Heart of the Wood_


My hope and my love, we will go for a while into the wood, scattering
the dew, where we will see the trout, we will see the blackbird on
its nest; the deer and the buck calling, the little bird that is sweetest
singing on the branches; the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;
and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood.




_An Craoibhin Complains Because He Is a Poet_


It's my grief that I am not a little white duck,
And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain;
I would not stay in Ireland for one week only,
To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug.

Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking,
Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat,
Without high dances, without a big name, without music;
There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.

It's my grief that I am not an old crow,
I would sit for awhile up on the old branch,
I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am