Elopement Poem by Frederick Robert Higgins

Now that the grey wet of the road makes quiet
Each step we take, ah, there can float
No stir in the air, but the stir of a cuckoo
Hopping its double note!
So hurry, black darling; from this sharp parish
We'll swiftly walk, with love as our fare
Until the far blue walls of the mountains
Are gapped with yellow air

It's down the hazy pale slabs of water,
Through the bushy towns we'll quietly go -
Just telling each hour by the passing colour
On the mountains of Mayo!
And soon on Bailassa you'll grow quite happy:
Its river gardens will shelter none
Who eyed your secret, where barren valleys
Were harvesting the sun

O maybe we'll live a while in Killala,
Where few things change with tide and tree,
Where love has been weaned and the streets in mildew
Just hobble to the lean sea!
There even my jealousy would believe you -
Were you ever so dreamy after the men
Of a town that yawned as the French marched through it
And never woke since then!

So hurry, my love, sunset may be shadowed
By one cloud roosting on a hill wind!
Ah hurry, black darling, and near the lake water -
With Lahardaun behind -
By moonlight we'll rest and maybe love's hunger
We'll break to the nod of a shy bulrush;
So may tonight pull sleep on our senses
In the spilt shadow of a bush.