Advice to Lovers

The way to get on with a girl
    Is to drift like a man in a mist,
Happy enough to be caught,
    Happy to be dismissed

Glad to be out of her way,
    Glad to rejoin her in bed,
Equally grieved or gay
    To learn that she’s living or dead.


Source: Frank O'Connor; The Little Monasteries; Dublin; Dolmen
Press; 1963, 1976 (1976 ed.); p.17