A History of Love

This is Love’s history
    And how it all began:
As an authority
    I am your foremost man.
 
Diarmuid the bold and gay,
    Chief of the warrior bands,
With Grania one day
    Invented holding hands.
 
While Ulster’s Hound as well,
    When a Greek girl went by,
Falling beneath her spell,
    Was first with the glad eye.
 
Naisi, home from the chase,
    Weary, inspired with bliss,
Seeing Deirdre don her trews,
    Endowed us with the kiss.

The son of Conall met
    Their challenges with grace
And left us in his debt
    By figuring the long embrace.

Avartach, king of the fairies,
    Following in their track,
With his arbutus berries
    Put a girl upon her back.

Ceadach, master of trades,
    Seeing them still unversed—
Those white-skinned Irish maids—
    Made women of them first.

And Angus as they say—
    Lord of the Sacred Hill—
First took their clothes away,
    And gave them perfect skill.

Learning that hearts can break
    Under Love’s miseries
Beside a Munster lake
    Glas filled the air with sighs.
 
Lamenting to soft strings
    And moans upon the pipe
Were Mongan’s offerings
    To woo some timid wife.

But I, to my own grief,
    First opened Jealousy’s door—
This is my tale in brief—
    And now it shuts no more.

Source: Frank O'Connor; The Little Monasteries; Dublin; Dolmen
Press; 1963, 1976 (1976 ed.); pp.28-29