On Raglan Road by Patrick Kavanagh

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…

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