On Raglan Road – Patrick Kavanagh

1946

Rhyme & Form: Lyrical Ballad, rhyme scheme (aabb, ccdd, eeff, ggbb)

Tone: Haunting, passionate, sad. It was written to a slow sad tune also.

Imagery: Autumn Dublin streets

Themes: Unrequited love, the Poet

Literary Techniques: Assonance[1], Alliteration

Note his stage in life, this stage being the protesting Dublin Poet.

This is probably one of the best known Irish ballads. It was written as a poem by Patrick Kavanagh, and as the story goes, Kavanagh met Luke Kelly of the Dubliners in a pub and asked to him “sing his song”. Luke obliged and sings a remarkable rendition of it – easily the definitive version with others, notably Sinead O’Connor performing it, but not getting the same passion in the song, an ability that defined Luke Kelly so well.

As soon as the poem begins we know that the future is not bright for Kavanagh and his would-be love. Kavanagh knew the instant he seen this lady that he would rue this moment. Kavanagh ‘saw the danger’ yet he was enchanted nonetheless ending the first stanza with a tone of inevitability:

And I said let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day

Kavanagh knows very well that the adventure of love is a risky one; love commands sacrifices and chances to be taken at every opportunity.  The deep ravine mentioned in stanza two forms the net for these risks and it is seen that Kavanagh indeed does fail in his quest for love:

The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
Oh I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.

Kavanagh speaks from a vantage point in retrospect as he looks back on this love-torn scene from his past. We only see Kavanagh’s feelings here as he loved too much; in fact ‘I’ occurs 14 times throughout the poem. Kavanagh couples his failure with a well-known saying ending with making hay. This hay-making is important for Kavanagh as he relates this back to rural life at a time when he was still bitter and frustrated with rural life, thus we are capable now of seeing just how much this Autumn lady hurt Kavanagh.

In the third stanza we see the romantic Kavanagh as he gives her many important gifts. Kavanagh is well aware of who and what he is, (as seen in Inniskeen Road) that being a poet. Kavanagh gives her the gifts of the mind and creativity and ‘poems to say’. These secrets he gives this lady are similar to those used by musicians, artists and sculptors: sound, stone and tint.

Kavanagh ends the poem by moving forwards in time to a ‘quiet street where old ghosts meet’ - we see now that any glimmer of hope for love has vanished as she walks away from Kavanagh ‘hurriedly’. But Kavanagh does know that he made a mistake in trying to woo this lady, nay Kavanagh feels (arrogantly) that he is above this as he relates his mistake to that of an angel losing his wings.[2] Just like in Inniskeen Road, Kavanagh feels he is superior to normal folk, Kavanagh has already stated that being a poet or an artist he must be an outsider, in this instance he takes it a step further and compares himself to an angelic being, thus his being drawn to this dark-haired woman was just a mortal mistake. In truth Kavanagh is set apart from this world on his quest of literature and poetry.

[2] Kavanagh may be using this reference purely to console himself