- The poem is an account of a brief love-relationship in Dublin in the 1950’s.
- The poem both celebrates and laments the memory of the relationship. The poet’s account is both sweet and sad.
- In the first stanza, Patrick recalls his first meeting with a charming woman on Raglan Road late in the year. He remembers details such as the road covered in autumn leaves.
- Patrick immediately fancied her and yet sensed that she would trap him in a relationship that would later leave him in distress.
- Her beautiful hair was too much to resist. She strikes him as a figure from mythology, perhaps like the Medusa. She seems to cast a magical spell over him.
- Patrick couldn’t resist the first feelings of love and took a risk with the woman./li>
- In the second stanza, Patrick remembers walking with his new beloved along Grafton Street in Dublin. The edge of the path seemed to be a ledge over a steep valley, indicating his feeling that the relationship contained dangers.
- The street litter and leaves in the gulley were like a warning to Patrick that love’s promises don’t last.
- Kavanagh uses a snippet from a nursery rhyme to show that his lover was…