In translating these poems I have chosen to do so in the speech of the thatched houses where I have heard and gathered them. _An Craoibhin_ had already used this Gaelic construction, these Elizabethan phrases, in translating the _Love Songs of Connacht_, as I have used it even in my creative work. Synge had not yet used it when he found in my _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_ "the dialect he had been trying to master," and of which he afterwards made such splendid use. Most of the translations in this book have already been printed in _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_, _Gods and Fighting Men_, _Saints and Wonders_, and _Poets and Dreamers_. When in the first month of the new year I began to choose from among them, it seemed strange to me that the laments so far outnumbered any songs of joy. But before that month was out news was brought to me that made the keening of women for the brave and of those who are left lonely after the young seem to be but the natural outcome and expression of human life. AUGUSTA GREGORY. COOLE, May, 1918. _CONTENTS_ The Grief of a Girl's Heart A Lament for Fair-Haired Donough that Was Hanged in Galway Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes His Lament for O'Daly His Praise of the Little Hill and the Plains of Mayo His Lament for O'Kelly His Vision of Death His Repentance His Answer when Some Stranger Aske Who He Was A Blessing on Patrick Sarsfield An Aran Maid's Wedding A Poem Written in Time of Trouble by an Irish Priest Who Had Taken Orders in France The Heart of the Wood An Croaibhin Complain Because He Is a Poet He Cries Out Against Love He Meditates on the Life of a Rich Man Forgaill's Praise of Columcille The Deer's Cry The Hymn of Molling's Guest, the Man Full of Trouble The Hag of Beare The Seven Heavens The Journey of the Sun The Nature of the Stars The Call to Bran The Army of the Sidhe Credhe's Complaint at the Battle of the White Strand A Sleepy Song that Grania Used to Be Singing Over Diarmuid the Time They Were Wandering and Hiding From Finn Her Song to Rouse Him from Sleep Her Lament for His Death The Parting of Goll and His Wife The Death of Osgar Oisin's Vision His Praise of Finn Oisin after the Fenians The Foretelling of Cathbad the Druid At Deidre's Birth Deirdre's Lament for the Sons of Usnach Emer's Lament for Cuchulain THE KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK _The Grief of a Girl's Heart_ O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with you and do not forget it; and you will have a sweetheart for fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of Greece beside you at night. It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me. You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.