Wow! Just found this thread. . .learned a whole lot about Raglan Road in an evening. My head hurts.

Anyway, I'll admit to being a 'Janey-come-lately'. My interpretation is based on nothing but my own opinion after having listened to, and loved, this song for a long time.

I'd like to hear what others think of my thoughts. . .

Even if the lyrics are inspired by a real-life heartbreak, I've always thought it was couched in terms of a mortal poet falling in love with a fairy queen.

He knows her for what she is, and that relationships between mortal and fairy always come to no good. (. . .I saw her first and knew/that her dark hair might weave a snare/That I might one day rue.)

Such is her ethereal charm, and the impetuousness of poets, that he gets involved anyway. (. . .I saw the danger, yet I walked/Along the enchanted way) with the 'enchanted way' being the path to underhill, the Lands Between, Fairyland, however you wanted to name it, and/or a reference to falling in love.

He decides to cast aside all thought of woe past or to come (. . .and I said let grief be a fallen leaf/At the dawning of the day.)

Where they 'trip lightly across the ledge/ of a deep ravine where can be seen/ the worth of passion's pledge'. the deep ravine is a lover's leap, and the 'worth of passion's pledge' is (metaphorically) the broken bodies of those who have died for love. 'Tripping lightly' means that they are being reckless, even though they know the danger because of what has happened to those gone before.

the Queen of Hearts reference, I'll admit has always stumped me. I've always thought it had something to do with Alice in Wonderland, but couldn't quite tease it out.

'Making hay' I've always thought was short for 'making hay while the sun shines.' In my family, one generation off the farm, that phrase was used to mean 'having fun, sexual or otherwise, while the opportunity presented itself.'

'I loved too much, by such and such, is happiness thrown away.' Clearly, intense passion can, and often does, lead to intense misery.

'I gave her the gifts of the mind, I gave her the secret sign. . .' OK, here I think he's playing with te old legends of 'bard as initiate' and is betraying (or at least reavealing) the secrets of mortal mages to his fairy lover.

'And word and tint, I did not stint'. . .before I saw the actual lyrics, I'd always thought it was 'with words intent', which to me makes more sense.

Perhaps he is an artist as well as a poet, and is praising her in paint and in poetry.

'I gave her poems to say/ with her own name there, and her shiny dark hair/ like clouds over fields of May.'

He writes her love poetry. Clear enough.

Now, IMHO, the song skips over the breakup and straight into the aftermath. 'where old ghosts meet' refers to meeting up with an old lover. . .in a sense you are both changed, and 'ghosts' of who you were when you were together.

and who among us hasn't walked hurriedly away from an old boy/girlfriend one chances upon unexpectedly, hoping that he/she hasn't seen us.

'For I have wooed, not as I should, a creature made of clay. . .' He *should* have wooed a mortal such as himself, a 'creature made of clay' instead of the ethereal fairy.

'For when the angel woos the clay, he'll lose his wings at the dawn of the day.'

OK, here's where my interpretation breaks down. Wouldn't be the first time that fairies have been equated with angels, and there is a long tradition of fairies losing their immortality and angels losing their wings over the love of a mortal. But shouldn't the pronoun be feminine. Three posibilities: 1) Paddy got sloppy. 2) The 'he' is the universal 'he' . . .as in back in the day when talking of a generic individual in writing, said invidiual was always presumed to be masculine, as in 'the doctors, they did this ' or 'the doctor, he did this'; 'the soldiers, they did this', the soldier, he did that.' Or in this case, 'the angels, they lose their wings' 'The angel, he loses his wings.' or 3) I haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

Anyway, in a nutshell, poet meets fairy queen, they fall in love, it ends unhappily off-stage, (perhaps because she is unwilling to sacrifice her immortality?). He sees her once again, she walks away without speaking to him, and he is mourning for what was lost.

So that's my take. Opinions?