Irish Love Poem by Margaret Widdemer (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

Margaret Widdemer won a Pulizer Prize for poetry. This poem is wonderful: the others, alas, not so much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Margaret also wrote middlebrow chick lit. She even coined the word "middlebrow" to describe it. You can find some examples by clicking the link below, stories such as "The Rose-Garden Husband", "Marriage Is Possible" and "I've Married Marjorie".

Please don't think I'm an intellectual snob - I do wish that there was sweetness and light in fiction, simple emotions and genuine people. . I'm sick of the current plague of serial killers, vampires, aliens and all the prurient screen-sex that is off-putting rather than on-turning. Who wrote the best erotic fiction for women? Jane Austen, in my opinion. So, if you're old-fashioned like me and can appreciate a tale of yearning, passion and restraint that reaches a thrilling climax and a happy-ending, then here's Margaret to pleasure you: (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that double-entendre).
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho...

A shieling is a stone hut built by shepherds to shelter them from the wind and rain. A shieling wasn't usually a dwelling but it did serve as the ideal place for a lover's tryst.

Paintings:
A Farm Girl with Three Calves and 'Silky' by Henry Hetherington Emmerson
Waiting for her Lover by William A. Breakspeare
Also other famous works of art you'll find if you search for images "painting shepherdess".

Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me,
The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free,
Far too clever a lover not to be having still
A lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the farther hill --
Love on the field and love on the path and love in the woody glen --
(Lad, will I never see you, never your face again?)

Ay, if the thing is ending, now I'll be getting rest,
Saying my prayers and bending down to be stilled and blest,
Never the days are sending hope till my heart is sore
For a laugh on the path and a voice by the gate and a step on the shieling floor
Grief on my ways and grief on my work and grief till the evening's dim --
(Lord, will I never hear it, never a sound of him?)

Sure if it's done forever, better for me that's wise,
Never the hurt, and never tears in my aching eyes,
No more the trouble ever to hide from my asking folk
Beat of my heart at click o' the latch, and throb if his name is spoke;
Never the need to hide the sighs and the flushing thoughts and the fret,
And after awhile my heart will hush and my hungering hands forget . . .
Peace on my ways, and peace in my step, and maybe my heart grown light --
(Mary, helper of heartbreak, send him to me to-night!)