[When Jim Low refers to “the unstilly watches of the night”, he is making an oblique, ironic reference to a poem by Thomas Moore which begins “Oft in the stilly night, Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me.” Set to music by Sir John Stevenson in about 1818, “Oft in the Stilly Night” was still popular in Ireland when Jim Low left for Australia. It is also mentioned in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).]
