I have a thought on one troublesome line, as follows.

I have a recording of this by the Boys of the Lough, and it seems to go, "I sat like Grief be (which can mean "by" in an Irish dialect) a fallen leaf..."

In Europe in earlier decades it was very common for a grave to be decorated with a memorial statue or tablet featuring allegorical women named "Grief" or "Patience". These figures expressed the family's sense of loss.

(Have you ever heard the old simile, "...like Patience on a monument, staring at Grief?")

To finish, I think the line means that the poet sat silent and still a long time, as it happens, near a fallen leaf and at dawn.

Why is the line at the beginning of the poem rather than the end? It's because of the tyranny of rhymes and meter, that's why. --------- As for the poet feeling "gutted, betrayed and used..." (earlier thread), that's going rather far! She didn't get him started on heroine or turn his family into the Nazis, you know.

I have always thought that the poet's biggest problem is not rejection, but shame -- that he went too far, too hard, sexually. Perhaps nearly raped her. That's why she walks hurriedly away at the end, and that's the reason for the references to clay, etc.

Shame is a lot harder on us than sadness.