Too cold for Hugh I deem this night, the drops so
heavily downpouring are a cause for sadness;
biting is this night’s cold—woe is me that such is
our companion’s lot.
In the clouds’ bosoms the water-gates of heaven are
flung wide; small pools are turned by it to seas,
all its destructiveness hath the firmament spewed
out.
A pain to me that Hugh Maguire to-night lies in a
stranger’s land, ‘neath lurid glow of lightning-bolts
and angry armed clouds’ clamour;
A woe to us that in the province of Clann Daire (Southwest
Munster) our well-beloved is couched, betwixt
a coarse cold-wet and grass-clad ditch and the
impetuous fury of the heavens.