The Irish Unionist’s Farewell to Greta Hellstrom in 1922

Golden haired and golden hearted

    I would ever have you be,

As you were when last we parted

    Smiling slow and sad at me.

Oh! the fighting down of passion!

    Oh! the century-seeming pain—

Parting in this off-hand fashion

    In Dungarvan in the rain.

Slanting eyes of blue, unweeping,

    Stands my Swedish beauty where

Gusts of Irish rain are sweeping

    Round the statue in the square;

Corner boys against the walling

    Watch us furtively in vain,

And the Angelus is calling

    Through Dungarvan in the rain.

Gales along the Commeragh Mountains,

    Beating sleet on creaking signs,

Iron gutters turned to fountains,

    And the windscreen laced with lines,

And the evening getting later,

    And the ache—increased again,

As the distance grows the greater

    From Dungarvan in the rain.

There is no one now to wonder

    What eccentric sits in state

While the beech trees rock and thunder

    Round his gate-lodge and his gate.

Gone—the ornamental plaster,

    Gone—the overgrown demesne

And the car goes fast, and faster,

    From Dungarvan in the rain.

Had I kissed and drawn you to me,

    Had you yielded warm for cold,

What a power had pounded through me

    As I stroked your streaming gold!

You were right to keep us parted:

    Bound and parted we remain,

Aching, if unbroken hearted—

    Oh! Dungarvan in the rain.