[Patrick Kavanagh's Lough Derg] was one of the most authentic compositions of comparable length to be offered us since The Waste Land. From the poet of The Great Hunger (1967) much passion was expected and an expressive constancy of feeling is likewise to be found in Lough Derg. At times, the verse (free but with irregular rhyme) goes, perhaps, a little roughshod; but never drops into that prosiness as when we say that 'Homer nods'.

The etiology of the poem is interesting; and we are indebted to the poet's brother Dr Peter Kavanagh for giving it to us. 'Patrick', he tells us, 'was a Catholic with emphasis on the mystical element. He did not dismiss the penitential approach. He wanted to understand it. That is why he went to Lough Derg'—the Irish Lourdes—on what might be called a reverent open-minded ironic pilgrimage. What he found there and...