“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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”

“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.”

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