To-day i felt as poor O-Brien did
When, turning from all else that was not his,
He took himself to that which was his own
- He took him to his verse - for other all he had not,
And (tho- man will crave and seek)
Another all than this he did not need

So, pen in hand he tried to tell the whole tale of his woe
In rhyming; lodge the full weight of his grief in versing: and so did:
Then - when his poem had been conned and cared,
And all put in that should not be left out - did he not find and with astonishment,

That grief had been translated, or was come
Other and better than it first looked to be:
And that this happened, because all things transfer
From what they seem to what they truly are
When they are innocently brooded on
- And, so, The poet makes grief beautiful.

-Behold me now, with my back to the wall,
Playing music to empty pockets!�
So, Raferty, tuning a blind mans plight,
Could sing the cark of misery away:
And know, in blindness and in poverty,
That woe was not of him, nor kind to him.

And Egan Rahilly begins a verse -
-My heart is broken, and my mind is sad ...�
-Twas surely true when he began his song,
And was less true when he had finished it:
- Be sure, his heart was buoyant, and his grief
Drummed and trumpeted as grief was sung!

For, as he meditated misery
And cared it into song - Strict Care, Strict Joy!
Caring for grief he cared his grief away:
And those sad songs, tho- woe be all the theme,
Do not make us grieve who read them now -
Because the poet makes grief beautiful.

And I, myself, conning a lonely heart
- Full lonely -twas, and -tis as lonely now
Turned me, by proper, to my natural,
And, now too long her vagrant, wooed my muse:
Then to her - let us look more close to these,
And, seeing, know; and, knowing, be at ease.

Seeing the sky o-ercast, and that the rain had
Plashed the window, and would plash again:
Seeing the summer lost, and the winter nigh:
Seeing inapt, and sad, and fallen from good:
Seeing how will was weak, and wish o-erbearing:
Seeing inconstant, seeing timidity:
Seeing too small, too poor in this and yon:
Seeing life, daily, grow more difficult:
Seeing all that moves away - moving away
... And that all seeing is a blind-mans treat,
And that all getting is a beggars dole,
And that all having is bankruptcy ...

All these, sad all! I told to my good friend,
Told Raferty, O-Brien, Rahilly,
Told rain, and frosted blossom, and the summer gone,
Told poets dead, and captains dead, and kings!
- And we cared naught that these were mournful things,
For, caring them, we made them beautiful.