Introduction by Seamus Heany. Leos Janacek discovered the poems he was to set in his song cycle ‘Diary of one who vanished’ (1917) in his local paper. They tell the story of a man who abandons his home because of his sexual infatuation with a gypsy. These new English versions by Seamus Heaney were commissioned by English National Opera for a series of international performances, opening in Dublin in October 1999.