Synge Snippet

Synge isn't known for his poetry, and most of it wasn't published during his lifetime. Though some of his poetry is sort of brooding and dark in an "okay I get it already you're an angsty artist" sort of way, some of it is really lovely. Here's a poem that makes me smile and think of Synge and Molly Allgood on one of their escapes to the countryside. They had to meet secretly at the beginning of their courtship since she was an actress in his theatre company, and it wasn't kosher for them to be seeing each other. (Scandalous!)

In May

In a nook
That opened south,
You and I
Lay mouth to mouth.

A snowy gull
And sooty daw
Came and looked
With many a caw;

'Such,' I said,
'Are I and you,
When you've kissed me
Black and blue!'

-Written in 1907, published 1909