1. J -r / £
SEAMUS HEANEY
try the same author
Death of a Naturalist
poetry
DOOR INTO T H E DARK
WINTERING OUT
NORTH
FIELD WORK.
STATION ISLAND
SWEENEY ASTRAY
SELECTED POEMS
THE HAW LANTERN
NEW SELECTED POEMS 1^66—
THE CURE AT TROY
SEEING THINGS
prose
T H E R A T T L E B A G [edited with Ted Hughes)
PREOCCUPATIONS: SELECTED PROSE 1968-1978
T H E GOVERNMENT O F T H E TONGUE
KM , °l[ £ faber andfaber
LONDON BOSTON
Htf<^ 114573

2. Digging
Between my finger and my t h u m b
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my w i n d o w , a clean rasping sound
W h e n the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
M y father, digging. I l o o k d o w n
T i l l his straining r u m p among the flowerbeds
Bends l o w , comes up twenty years away
Stooping i n r h y t h m through potato drills
"Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the l u g , the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
T o scatter new potatoes that we picked,
L o v i n g their cool hardness i n our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a" spade.
Just like his old man.
M y grandfather cut more turf i n a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried h i m m i l k i n a bottle
Corked sloppily w i t h paper. H e straightened up
T o drink i t , then fell to r i g h t away
[x]

3. N i c k i n g and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going d o w n and down Death of a Naturalist
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato m o u l d , the squelch and slap A l l year the flax-dam festered i n the heart
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge O f the t o w n l a n d ; green and heavy headed
Through living roots awaken i n m y head.. Flax had rotted there, weighted d o w n by huge sods.
But I've no spade to f o l l o w men like them. Daily i t sweltered i n the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Between m y finger and m y t h u m b Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
The squat pen rests. There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
I ' l l dig w i t h i t . But best of all was the w a r m thick slobber
O f frogspawn that grew like clotted water
I n the shade of the banks. Here, every spring,
I w o u l d fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
O n shelves at school, and w a i t and "watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls w o u l d tell us h o w
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog.
A n d h o w he croaked, and h o w the mammy f r o g
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. Y o u could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow i n the sun and b r o w n
I n rain.
Then one h o t day when fields were rank
W i t h cowdung i n the grass, the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
T o a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick w i t h a bass chorus.
Right d o w n the dam, gross-bellied frogs were cocked
[3]

4. O n sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some .
hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats; Some saf
'Poised like m u d grenades, their blunt heads farting.
1 sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
"Were gathered "there'iof vengeance, "and I k n e w
That i f I dipped m y hand the-spawn w o u l d clutch i t
[4]

5. Follower Ancestral Photograph
M y father w o r k e d w i t h a horse-plough, Jaws puff round and solid as a t u r n i p ,
His shoulders globed l i k e a f u l l sail strung Dead eyes are statue's and the upper lip
Between the shafts and the f u r r o w . Bullies the heavy m o u t h d o w n to a .droop
The horses strained at his clicking tongue. A bowler suggests the stage Irishjnan
Whose l o o k has t w o parts scorn, t w o parts dead pan.
A n expert. H e w o u l d set the w i n g H i s silver watch chain girds h i m like a hoop.
A n d fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over w i t h o u t breaking. V M y father's uncle, f r o m w h o m he learnt the trade,
A t the headrig, w i t h a single pluck L o n g fixed i n sepia tints, begins to fade
A n d must come d o w n . N o w on the bedroom w a l l
Of reins, the sweating team turned'round There is a £a3ed patch where he has been —
A n d back into the land. His eye As i f a bandage had been rippe.d f r o m skin —
N a r r o w e d and angled at the ground, E m p t y plaque to a house's rise and fall.
' M a p p i n g the f u r r o w exactly.
' T w e n t y years ago I herded cattle
I stumbled i n his hob-nailed' wake, . Into^gens or held them against a w a l l
Fell sometimes on the polished sod; J n t i l my father w o n at arguing
Sometimesii£jxxd^-45B©-©H4y5-4ad<,^ ^ H i s o w n price on a c r o w d of cattlemen
D i p p i n g and rising to his p l o d , fytyfiH W h o handled rumps, groped teats, stood, paused and
then
I wanted to grow up and plough, Bought a r o u n d of drinks to clinch the bargain.
T o close one eye, stiffen m y arm.
A l l I ever did was follow Uncle and nephew, fifty years ago, '
I n his broad shadow round the f a r m . Heckled and herded through the fair days too.
This barrel of a m a n penned i n the frame: ;
' I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, I see h i m w i t h the jaunty hat pushed back . •
. Yapping always. B u t today D r a w thumbs out of his waistcoat, curtly smack..
C
' I t is my father w h o keeps stumbling Hands and sell, ^ a ^ ^ , I've watched y o u do the same
Behind me, and w i l l not go away.
[xz] . [x ]
3

6. where the halved seed shot and clotted,
At a Potato Digging these knobbed and slit-eyed tubers seem
the petrified hearts of drills. Split
by the spade, they show white as cream.
i
Good smells exude f r o m crumbled earth.
A mechanical digger wrecks the d r i l l ,
The rough bark of humus erupts
Spins up a dark shower of roots and m o u l d .
knots of potatoes (a clean birth)
Labo urers swarm i n behind, stoop to fill
whose solid feel, whose wet insides
Wicker creels. Fingers go dead i n the cold.
promise taste of ground and root.
To be piled i n pits; live skulls, blind-eyed.
Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch
A higgledy line f r o m hedge to headland;
Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch ill ,-
A f u l l creel to the p i t and straighten, stand.
Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on
w i l d higgledy skeletons,
Tall for a moment but soon stumble back
To fish a- new load f r o m the crumbled surf. scoured the land i n 'forty-five,
Heads bow, trunks bend, hands fumble towards the wolfed the blighted r o o t and died.
black
M o t h e r . Processional stooping through the t u r f The new potato, sound as stone,
putrefied when i t h a d lain
Recurs mindlessly as autumn. Centuries three days i n the l o n g clay p i t .
O f fear and hljma^e to the famine god Millions rotted along w i t h i t .
Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees,
Make a seasonal altar of the sod. Mouths tightened i n , eyes died hard,
faces chilled to a plucked b i r d .
In a million wicker huts,
II
beaks of famine snipped at guts.
Flint-white, purple. They lie scattered
like inflated pebbles.. Native A people hungering f r o m b i r t h ,
to the black hutch of clay grubbing, like plants, i n the earth,
[18] [19]

7. were grafted w i t h a great sorrow.
Hope rotted like a marrow. For the Commander of the Eliza
. . . the others, with emaciated faces and prominent, staring
Stinking potatoes fouled the land,
eyeballs, were evidently in an advanced state of starvation. The
pits turned pus into filthy mounds: officer reported to Sir James Dombrain . . . and Sir James, 'very
and where potato diggers are, inconveniently', wrote Routh, 'interfered',
you still smell the running sore. CECIL WOODHAM-SMITH: THE GREAT HUNGER
Routine patrol off West M a y o ; sighting
iv •
A rowboat heading unusually far
Under a gay flotilla of gulls Beyond the creek, I tacked and hailed the crew
The r h y t h m deadens, the workers stop. I n Gaelic. Their stroke had clearly weakened
B r o w n bread and tea i n bright canfuls As they pulled to, f r o m guilt or bashfulness
Are served for lunch. Dead-beat, they flop I was conjecturing when, O my sweet Christ,
W e saw piled i n the b o t t o m of their craft
D o w n in the ditch and take their fill, Six g r o w n men w i t h gaping mouths -an'd eyes
Thankfully breaking timeless fasts;' Bursting the sockets like spring onions-in drills.
Then, stretched on the faithless ground, spill Six wrecks of bone and pallid, tautened skin.
Libations of cold tea, scatter crusts. 'Bia, bia,
Bia'. I n whines and snarls their desperation
Rose and fell like a flock of starving gulls.
W e ' d k n o w n about the shortage, hut on board
They always kept us right w i t h flour and beef
So understand my feelings, and the men's,
W h o had no mandate to relieve distress
Since relief was then available i n Westport —
T h o u g h clearly these.poor brutes w o u l d never make i t .
I had to refuse food: they cursed and h o w l e d
Like dogs that had been kicked hard i n the privates.
W h e n they drove at me w i t h their starboard oar
(Risking capsize themselves) I saw they were
Violent and w i t h o u t hope. I hoisted
A n d cleared off. Less incidents the better.
[zo]

8. Trout Waterfall
Hangs,' a fat gun-barrel, The burn drowns steadily i n its o w n d o w n p o u r ,
deep under arched bridges A helter-skelter of muslin and glass
or slips like butter d o w n , That skids to a halt, crashing up suds.
the tdjjSg^t of the river.
Simultaneous acceleration •
From depths smooth-skinned as plums, A n d sudden braking; water goes over
his muzzle gets -bnil!s_eve^_ Like villains dropped screaming to justice.
picks off grass-seed and moths
that vanish, torpedoed. ,^jt_ar£p_ears an athletic glacier
Hasrearea 7nto reverse: is iljalkyv^ed up
r
Where water unravels A n d regurgitated through this l o n g i & r o a t .
over gravel-beds he
is fired from the shallows, JMveye.rides over and downwards, falls w i t h
white belly reporting H u r t l i n g tons that slabber and spill,
Falls, yet records t h e ^ ^ ^ t t thus standing still.
flat; darts like a tracer- .
bullet back between stones
and is never burnt out.
A volley of cold ^ f o ^
ramrodding the current.
[z6] [2.7]