Lady Gormley was a poet who lived in 10th century Ireland. Here is her sad biography, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise: "Neale Glunduffe was king three years and was married to the lady Gormphley, daughter to King Flann, who was a very fair, vertuous and learned damozell, was married first to Cormack mcO'Cuillennann, king of Munster, secondly to King Neale, by whom she had issue a sonne calle prince Donnell who was drowned, upon whose death she made many pittifull and learned dittyes in Irish, and lastly shee was married to Kervall mcMoregan, king of Leinster, after all which royall marriages she begged from doore to doore, forsaken of all her friends and allies, and glad to be relieved by her inferiors."

The following poem is part of a sequence of laments composed for Lady Gormley's third and last husband, Niall - not Carroll the "Kervall" of the Annals above, who was actually her second husband.

FROM "GORMLEY'S LAMENTS"

I have loved thirty by three,
I have loved nine by nine,
though I have loved twenty men
this is not what women seek.

I left them all for Niall,
it was my wish to do his bidding,
had I not good reason
to be Niall's first queen?

Though heroes are many in Leath Conn
there was nothing he could not win,
better for me, the sadness of life,
to have been a poor man's wife.

His painted cloaks, his gold rings,
his strong horses that won their race,
his full tide of fortune ebbed,
each in its turn has fled.

I have nothing between ground and sky
but a white shift and a black cloak,
in Cennanas of a hundred kings
who cares if I am hungry?

One Sunday we were at the church,
my lord and I at the figured stone,
at Cennanas of the great cross
announcing the tax of Leath Conn.

My king said to me
with a gentle tap of his left hand,
"Go to church where people are
accustomed to adore God's Son."

We went then, it is true,
twelve score young girls,
Mo'r came before me as her duty
and took from me my pointed shoes.

To her, a woman of Abbot Colum,
I gave a globe wreathed in gold
and two score cows, and cattle
on the north side of the great chapel.

I gave her a foreign blue hood
and a horn stand for psalms,
and thirty ounces of gold,
she has them still in her hands.

To-night she gave me - poor
charity is not good-
two tenths of hard oats,
two hen's eggs from her store.

By the King who brightens the sun,
if Niall Glunduv lived,
Abbot's wife of Tulach Leis,
I would not need your eggs.

I got a cup, I got a comb,
I got fine cloth from Mo'r,
From me she got a brown red horse
and gold apples in a bowl.

Sorrow to one whose pride is gold,
Sorrow, Mo'r, to one who's selfish,
I paid poets for their words
before God took my riches.

The man who pays for poems with horses
may God give him their worth -
if my words do Niall justice,
how much better the poets!

(translated from Irish by Joan Keefe)