Padraic Colum (8 December 1881 – 11 January 1972 / County Longford)

THE fiddles were playing and playing,
The couples were out on the floor;
From converse and dancing he drew me,
And across the door.

Ah! strange were the dim, wide meadows,
And strange was the cloud-strewn sky,
And strange in the meadows the corncrakes,
And they making cry!

The hawthorn bloom was by us,
Around us the breath of the south
White hawthorn, strange in the night-time
His kiss on my mouth!