Seamus Heaney
"It is a great wonder How Almighty God in his magnificence Favors our race with rank and scope And the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide. Sometimes He allows the mind of a man Of distinguished birth to follow its bent,Grants him fulfillment and felicity on earth And forts to command in his own country. He permits him to lord it in many lands Until the man in his unthinkingness Forgets that it will ever end for him. He indulges his desires; illness and old age Mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled By envy or malice or thought of enemies With their hate-honed swords. The whole world Conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst Until an element of overweening Enters him and takes hold While the soulβs guard, its sentry, drowses,Grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,An archer who draws a deadly bow. And then the man is hit in the heart,The arrow flies beneath his defenses,The devious promptings of the demon start. His old possessions seem paltry to him now. He covets and resents; dishonors custom And bestows no gold; and because of good things That the Heavenly powers gave him in the past He ignores the shape of things to come. Then finally the end arrives When the body he was lent collapses and falls Prey to its death; ancestral possessions And the goods he hoarded and inherited by another Who lets them go with a liberal hand.βO flower of warriors, beware of that trap. Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,Eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride. For a brief while your strength is in bloom But it fades quickly; and soon there will follow Illness or the sword to lay you low,Or a sudden fire or surge of water Or jabbing blade or javelin from the air Or repellent age. Your piercing eye Will dim and darken; and death will arrive,Dear warrior, to sweep you away."
55 Quotes
"It is a great wonder How Almighty God in his magnificence Favors our race with rank and scope And the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide. Sometimes He allows the mind of a man Of distinguished birth to follow its bent,Grants him fulfillment and felicity on earth And forts to command in his own country. He permits him to lord it in many lands Until the man in his unthinkingness Forgets that it will ever end for him. He indulges his desires; illness and old age Mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled By envy or malice or thought of enemies With their hate-honed swords. The whole world Conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst Until an element of overweening Enters him and takes hold While the soulβs guard, its sentry, drowses,Grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,An archer who draws a deadly bow. And then the man is hit in the heart,The arrow flies beneath his defenses,The devious promptings of the demon start. His old possessions seem paltry to him now. He covets and resents; dishonors custom And bestows no gold; and because of good things That the Heavenly powers gave him in the past He ignores the shape of things to come. Then finally the end arrives When the body he was lent collapses and falls Prey to its death; ancestral possessions And the goods he hoarded and inherited by another Who lets them go with a liberal hand.βO flower of warriors, beware of that trap. Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,Eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride. For a brief while your strength is in bloom But it fades quickly; and soon there will follow Illness or the sword to lay you low,Or a sudden fire or surge of water Or jabbing blade or javelin from the air Or repellent age. Your piercing eye Will dim and darken; and death will arrive,Dear warrior, to sweep you away."
Seamus Heaney
"Donβt have the veins bulging in your biro."
Seamus Heaney
"More than loud acclaim, I love Books, silence, thought, my alcove. Pangur BΓ‘n Poem by Anon Irish Monk, Translated by Seamus Heaney"
Seamus Heaney
"Mid-Term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home. In the porch I met my father cryingβHe had always taken funerals in his strideβAnd Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'. Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four-foot box, a foot for every year."
Seamus Heaney
"words... To lure the tribal shoals to epigram / And order."
Seamus Heaney
"Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure The bastion of sensation. Do not waver Into language. Do not waver in it."
Seamus Heaney
"The way we are living,timorous or bold,will have been our life."
Seamus Heaney
"Digging Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked,Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Tonerβs bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But Iβve no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. Iβll dig with it."
Seamus Heaney
"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."
Seamus Heaney
"I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job"
Seamus Heaney
"Since when," he asked,"Are the first line and last line of any poem Where the poem begins and ends?"
Seamus Heaney
"There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you."
Seamus Heaney
"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."
Seamus Heaney
"All I know is a door into the dark"
Seamus Heaney
"History says, Donβt hope On this side of the grave,But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme"
Seamus Heaney
βοΈ
Get more quotes like Seamus Heaney's β every morning.
Join thousands of wisdom seekers getting daily quotes from 300,000+ curated sources.
Free forever. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
π Check your inbox to confirm your subscription!