MY GRIEF ON THE SEA My grief on the sea, How the waves of it roll! For they heave between me And the love of my soul! Abandoned, forsaken, To grief and to care, Will the sea ever waken Relief from despair? My grief and my trouble! Would he and I were In the province of Leinster Or the county of Clare. Were I and my darling -- Oh, heart-bitter wound! On board of the ship For America bound. On a green bed of rushes All last night I lay, And I flung it abroad With the heat of the day. And my love came behind me -- He came from the South; His breast to my bosom. His mouth to my mouth. -- Anon., 19th c., translated by Douglas HYDE "1000 Years Of Irish Poetry," ed. Kathleen Hoaglund (1947 & 1975) Douglas HYDE (1860-1949), academic and cultural revivalist. Son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, brought up first in Co. Sligo and then, from 1867, at Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon, both areas rich in antiquities and where some spoken Irish survived. He entered Trinity College in 1880, switching from an initial course of divinity to law. Though not the founder of the Gaelic League, HYDE became its first president in 1893. He was professor of Irish at University College, Dublin, a member of the Irish Free State Senate from 1925, and first president of Ireland 1938-45. HYDE published extensively, drawing both on oral tradition and on manuscript sources. His most important collections included "Love Songs of Connacht" (1893), and "The Religious Songs of Connacht" (1906). He collaborated with YEATS and LADY GREGORY on a number of theatrical productions. His political sympathies were nationalist.