Whoa, I thought I was posting an item to a basically dead web page to be visted on rare occassion by internet stragglers like myself. I'll go read up on Mudcat eitquette ~after~ briefly mentioning two pertinent quotes I stumbled upon.

"A poem should not mean but be." Archie Macleish 1926

And if Mr. K. is having a chuckle, here's a tweak to raise the Irish in him:

"He who loves the more, is inferior and must suffer. . . ." Thomas Mann 1903

Silly of me to not have mentioned Luke Kelly. In my mind I regarded him as the baseline from which to compare the others.

Thanks again, though. What to many of you is "fairly stock phrasing from the tradition" can be lost upon others, causing unnecessary misunderstanding. I'm sure I enjoy the song even more now. (It can now even bring a tear to my cold blue eye.)