thought to bring ill
luck; for I am told of a girl 'that was not handsome at all, but ugly,
that he made a song about her for civility; for she used to be in a
house where he used to lodge, and the song got her a husband; and there
is a son of hers living now down in Clare-Galway.' And an old woman
tells me, with a sigh of regret for what might have been, that she saw
Raftery one time at a dance, and he spoke to her and said: 'Well planed
you are; the carpenter that planed you knew his trade.' 'And I said:
"Better than you know yours;" for there were two or three of the strings
of his fiddle broke. And then he said something about O'Meara, that
lived near us; and my father got vexed at what he said, and would let
him speak no more with me. And if it wasn't for him speaking about
O'Meara, and my father getting vexed, he might have made words about me
like he did for Mary Hynes and for Mary Brown.'

'Bridget Vesach,' which I have heard in many cottages, as well as from
the old woman in Gort Workhouse, begins: 'I would wed courteous Bridget
without coat, shoe, or shirt. Treasure of my heart, if it were possible
for me, I would fast for you nine meals, without food, without drink,
without any share of anything, on an island of Lough Erne, with desire
for you and me to be together till we should settle our case.... My
heart started with trouble, and I was frightened nine times that morning
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 t