The poem
When the black herds of the rain were grazing, In the gap of the pure cold wind And the watery hazes of the hazel Brought her into my mind, I thought of the last honey by the water That no hive can find.
Brightness was drenching through the branches When she wandered again, Turning sliver out of dark grasses Where the skylark had lain, And her voice coming softly over the meadow Was the mist becoming rain.
What a lovely poem, evoking the themes of the misty, rainy weather of Ireland, the metaphors of landscape chiming with the theme, the silky kine of Ireland. Each word so carefully chosen, to read this aloud is almost to sing.
Well, teh poem is about the Irish civil war about the obscuring of the ideals that drove the war of independence against the british - " the mist becoming rain" brother fighting brother. The Heifer is a symbol of Ireland and not an incidental one, it goes back to ancient celtic times as does the deliberate use of assonance throughout -long vowel sounds which mimic the sound and lyricism of the irish language, to evoke the sound of the wind in the pass, the desolation of irelands struggle for freedom , not the "Silky kine of ireland" DAWN - if that is your REAL name.