Liadain

Liadain (“the grey lady”) was a Munster poetess who, according to the
romance, was courted by another poet, Curithir (“Otter’s Son”) with
the remarkable plea—“a child of ours should be famous.” Because, as
the romance makes clear, she did not wish to spoil her round of
visits, she asked him to join her at home in Munster, but when he
arrived, she had already become a nun. In the same romance she is
given an equally wonderful but untranslatable poem in which she
describes him as “the ex-poet.” Only those who have known an ex-poet
will realise what the word means.

Gain without gladness
  Is in the bargain’I have struck;
One that I loved I wrought to madness.

Mad beyond measure
  But for God’s fear that numbed her heart
She that would not do his pleasure.

Was it so great
  My treason? Was I not always kind?
Why should it turn his love to hate?

Liadain,
  That is my name, and Curithir
The man I loved; you know my sin.

Alas too fleet!
  Too brief my pleasure at his side;
With him the passionate hours were sweet.

Woods woke
  About us for a lullaby,
And the blue waves in music spoke.

And now too late
  More than for all my sins I grieve
That I turned his love to hate.

Why should I hide
  That he is still my heart’s desire
More than all the world beside?

A furnace blast
  Of love has melted down my heart,
Without his love it cannot last.

Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An
Anthology from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; p.51