Seamus Heaney

“Meanwhile, the swordbegan to wilt into gory icicles, to slather and thaw. It was a wonderful thing, the way it all melted as ice melts when the Father eases the fetters off the frostand unravels the water-ropes. He who wields powerover time and tide: He is the true Lord.”

“I shall gain glory or die.”

“So hope for a great sea-changeOn the far side of revenge.Believe that further shoreIs reachable from here.Believe in miraclesAnd cures and healing wells.”

“By God, the old man could handle a spade.Just like his old man.”

“I rhymeTo see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”

“And a young prince must be prudent like that,giving freely while his father livesso that afterwards, in age when fighting startssteadfast companions will stand by himand hold the line.”

“It is said that once upon a time St. Kevin was kneeling with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross in Glendalough. . . As Kevin knelt and prayed, a blackbird mistook his outstretched hand for some kind of roost and swooped down upon it, laid a clutch of eggs in it and proceeded to nest in it as if it were the branch of a tree. Then, overcome with pity and constrained by his faith to love all creatures great and small, Kevin stayed immobile for hours and days and nights and weeks, holding out his hand until the eggs hatched and the fledging grew wings, true to life if subversive of common sense, at the intersection of natural process and the glimpsed ideal, at one and the same time a signpost and a reminder. Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.”

“We want what the woman wanted in the prison queue in Leningrad, standing there with cold and whispering for fear, enduring the terror of Stalin's regime and asking the poet Anna Akhmatova if she could describe it all, if her art was equal to it.”

“Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.”

“He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross, Clearly used to silence and an armchair: Tonight the wife and children will be quiet At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall.”

“words...To lure the tribal shoals to epigram / And order.”

“Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.”

“In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.”

“The dotted line my father's ashplant madeOn Sandymount StrandIs something else the tide won't wash away.”

“Once off the bushThe fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.I always felt like crying. It wasn't fairThat all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.-Blackberry picking”

“All I know is a door into the dark”

“History says, Don't hope/On this side of the grave/But then, once in a lifetime/The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up/And hope and history rhyme./So hope for a great sea change/On the far side of revenge/Believe in miracles....”

“It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir; that Tacitus was right and that peace is merely the desolation left behind after the decisive operations of merciless power.”

“If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.”

“Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure The bastion of sensation. Do not waver Into language. Do not waver in it.”

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.”

“History says, Don’t hopeOn this side of the grave,But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme”

“I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job”

“To work, her dumb lunge says,is to move a certain mass...through a certain distance,is to pull your weight and feelexact and equal to it.Feel dragged upon. And buoyant.”

“There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. ”

“Behaviour that's admiredis the path to power among people everywhere.”

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

“The end of art is peace.”

“Walk on air against your better judgement.”

“If self is a location, so is love:Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points,Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance,Here and there and now and then, a stance.”

“It is always betterto avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.For every one of us, living in this worldmeans waiting for our end. Let whoever canwin glory before death. When a warrior is gone,that will be his best and only bulwark.”

“Now it’s high watermark and floodtide in the heartand time to go.The sea-nymphs in the spraywill be the chorus now.What’s left to say?Suspect too much sweet-talkbut never close your mind.It was a fortunate windthat blew me here. I leavehalf-ready to believe that a crippled trust might walkand the half-true rhyme is love.”

“Human beings suffer,They torture one another,They get hurt and get hard.No poem or play or songCan fully right a wrongInflicted and endured.The innocent in gaolsBeat on their bars together.A hunger-striker's fatherStands in the graveyard dumb.The police widow in veilsFaints at the funeral home.History says, don't hopeOn this side of the grave.But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme.So hope for a great sea-changeOn the far side of revenge.Believe that further shoreIs reachable from here.Believe in miracleAnd cures and healing wells.Call miracle self-healing:The utter, self-revealingDouble-take of feeling.If there's fire on the mountainOr lightning and stormAnd a god speaks from the skyThat means someone is hearingThe outcry and the birth-cryOf new life at its term.”