The Way Of Love

I did not say to her: - 
  "You are my love."
At the dance
I stood in the corner among the cynics
Passing unkind comments
Obscurely witty
That loud, loud
Echoed in the Empty Place

She danced
I said: - "Oh that's Pavlova!"
And all the awkward-footed wallflowers
Laughed wildly:
They thought Pavlova was
Someone not good

I heard her laugh
The sharp high laugh that does not rise
From hearts love-satisfied
And so awoke in me
A little spire of light -
Hope.
  "She'll come she'll come" was lit
High on the sensitive thorn, as a flower.
  "She'll come she'll come
    In lonely storms to you she'll come,
    She'll fall for you, she'll fall for you
    As you have fallen for her."

Said Reason: "She's indifferent,
   Has not care
   For you any more than your savage companions
   Babbling there."
But I answered Reason
I said: - 
 "You cannot put love in a frame
   Love is not of the head
   I shall listen to what my heart says
   And to hell with your breed
   And your creed
   And your frost-bitten ways."

The heart is right - 
No man has trained the flame of love
To patterns of utility.
She came to me

So for all men is love
A heady lie
So do all men meet love - 
A passer-by.
A few steps past
But not beyond the ring
Of inner truth
And faery reasoning.

Mind is a poor scholar
O blind Mind
When is spun your chilly firmament
Souls nothing find

And love, love-flame
In a dark cell
Makes fuel of firmaments
And dims out Hell.

§ Signed: ‘Patrick Kavanagh
Inniskeen
Dundalk
I.F.S.
Also signed: ‘All unpub
all rightly so’