And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf....

..at the dawning of the day.


Today is the 50th anniversary of the passing of Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. I suspect his best-known poem is 'On Raglan Road' as it has been sung by many a singer from the original by Luke Kelly through Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor. It was Kavanagh himself that gave the poem to Luke Kelly and told him to sing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYJO5fJgNSQ 



The poem was written by Kavanagh for Hilda Moriarty but their relationship, as the poem tells us, didn't last. 


I took this photo in France in Autumn, 2015 and use it here with the excuse that it capture's 'a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day'.


On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew 
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue; 
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way, 
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day. 

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge 
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge, 
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay - 
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away. 

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known 
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone 
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say. 
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May 

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now 
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow 
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay - 
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day. 
P. Kavanagh