This volume reveals a crucial body of work in Irish poetry, previously unavailable in North America. Beginning with a number of his precocious lyrics, written in Hartnett s teens, the volume continues through exquisite love poems and early elegies, some pastoral poems and, later, farewells to pastoral. Hartnett s celebrated declaration to write in Irish introduces a series of translations and announces the more public arguments of subsequent poems in English. The book concludes with five extended parables about salvation and the artistic life. It is undeniable evidence of a singular dedication and achievement."