The Ex-Poet Once the ex-poet Cuirithir And I were lovers; there’s no cure; And I am left to bear the pain, Knowing we shall not meet again. South of the church there stands a stone Where the ex-poet sat alone; I sit there too at close of day In twilight when I come to pray. No woman now shall be his mate, No son nor daughter share his fate, No thigh beside his thigh repose— Solitary the ex-poet goes. Note: Both [poems: ‘The Ex-Poet’ and ‘Ordeal by Cohabitation’] from ‘Liadain and Cuirithir’. St. Cummine, as author of a famous Penitential, was regarded by Irish storytellers as a proper man to handle lovers—see ‘The Nun of Beare’. He tests the progress in Virtue of the two poet lovers by making them sleep together with a young student between them. The experiment is a failure and Cuirithir departs in anger. ‘Ex-poet’, as well as having its ordinary meaning, is also a bitter play on the Old Irish word for ‘monk’, which might be rendered ‘ex-laic’. Source: Frank O'Connor; The Little Monasteries; Dublin; Dolmen Press; 1963, 1976 (1976 ed.); p.14