THIS HOURE HER VIGILL Elizabeth, frigidly stretched, On a spring day surprised us With her starched dignity and the quietness Of her hands clasping a black cross. With book and candle and holy water dish She received us in the room with the blind down. Her eyes were peculiarly closed and we knelt shyly Noticing the blot of her hair on the white pillow. We met that evening by the crumbling wall In the field behind the house where I lived And talked it over, but could find no reason Whey she had left us whom she had liked so much. Death, yes, we understood: something to do With age and decay, decrepit bodies; But here was this vigorous one, aloof and prim. Who would not answer our furtive whispers. Next morning, hearing the priest call her name, I fled outside, being full of certainty, And cried my seven years against the church's stone wall. For eighteen years I did not speak her name. Until this autumn day when, in a gale, A sapling fell outside my window, its branches Rebelliously blotting the lawn's green. Suddenly, I thought Of Elizabeth, frigidly stretched. -- Valentin Iremonger, born in Dublin, 1918, educated at Synge Street Christian Brothers' School, Colaiste Mhuire and the Abbey Theatre School of Acting. Actor and producer at Abbey and Gate theatres, 1940-6. He wrote a small number of impressive lyrics in his late 20s and very little thereafter. Entered Irish diplomatic service, 1946. Over the next approximately 20 years he was Ambassador to Sweden, Norway, Finland, India, Luxembourg and Portugal. He was poetry editor of "Envoy," 1949-51. Co-edited "Contemporary Irish Poetry" (1949) with Robert Greacen, and translated "The Hard Road to Klondike" and "An Irish Navvy, the Diary of an Exile" in the early 1960s. Iremonger died in 1991.