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Book: North
Quotes of Book: North
TOP TAGS :materialismimagessuburbiaclarityrivalrycatharsisunderstanding-lifecatastrophe

  1. Seamus Heaney _ North

    The diamond absolutes.I am neither internee nor informer;An inner emigre, grown long-hairedAnd thoughtful; a wood-kerneEscaped from the massacre,Taking protective colouringFrom bole and bark, feelingEvery wind that blows;Who, blowing up these sparksFor their meagre heat, have missedThe once-in-a-lifetime portent,The comet's pulsing tose.
    book-quote

  2. Seamus Heaney _ North

    This morning from a dewy motorwayI saw the new camp for the internees:A bomb had left a crater of fresh clayIn the roadside, and over in the treesMachine-gun posts defined a real stockade.There was that white mist you get on a low groundAnd it was deja-vu, some film madeOf Stalag 17, a bad dream with no sound.Is there a life before death? That's chalked upIn Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,Coherent miseries, a bite and sup:we hug our little destiny again.-Whatever You Say Say Nothing
    book-quotethe-troubles

  3. Seamus Heaney _ North

    I step through originslike a dog turningits memories of wildernesson the kitchen mat:the bog floor shakes,water cheeps and lispsas I walk downrushes and heather.I love this turf-face,it's black incisions,the cooped secretsof process and ritual:-"Kinship
    book-quoteireland

  4. Seamus Heaney _ North

    Diodorus Siculus confessedHis gradual ease among the likes of this:Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terribleBeheaded girl, outstaring axeAnd beatification, outstaringWhat had begun to feel like reverence.-"Strange Fruit
    book-quotelynchingnorthern-ireland

  5. Seamus Heaney _ North

    My poor scapegoat,I almost love youbut would have cast, I know,the stones of silence.I am the artful voyeurof your brain's exposed and darkened combs,your muscles' webbingand all your numbered bones:I who have stood dumbwhen your betraying sisters,cauled in tar,wept by the railings,who would connivein civilized outrageyet understand the exactand tribal, intimate revenge.-"Punishment
    book-quotei-r-anorthern-ireland

  6. Seamus Heaney _ North

    A landscape fossilized,It's stone-wall patterningsRepeated before our eyesIn the stone walls of Mayo.Before I turned to goHe talked about persistence,A congruence of lives,How, stubbed and cleared of stones,His home accrued growth ringsOf iron, flint and bronze- "Belderg
    book-quoteireland

  7. Seamus Heaney _ North

    And you, Tacitus,observe how I make my groveon an old crannogpiled by the fearful dead:a desolate peace.Our mother groundin sour with the bloodof her faithful,they lie garglingin her sacred heartas the legions starefrom the ramparts.Come back to this 'island of the ocean'where nothing will suffice.Read the inhumed facesof casualty and victim;report us fairly,how we slaughterfor the common goodand shave the headsof the notorious,how the goddess swallowsour love and terror.- Kinship
    book-quotethe-troubles

  8. Seamus Heaney _ North

    Did you ever hear tell,'said Jimmy Farrell,'of the skulls they havein the city of Dublin?White skulls and black skullsand yellow skulls, and some with full teeth, and some haven't only but one,' and compounded history in the pan of 'an old Dane,maybe, was drownedin the Flood.'My words lick aroundcobbled quays, go huntinglightly as pampootiesover the skull-capped ground.-Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces
    book-quoteirelandvikings

  9. Seamus Heaney _ North

    And here is lovelike a tinsmith's scoopsunk past its gleanin the meal-bin.--"Sunlight
    book-quotelove

  10. Seamus Heaney _ North

    Rain comes down through the alders,Its low conductive voicesMutter about let-downs and erosionsAnd yet each drop recallsThe diamond absolutes.
    book-quote

  11. Seamus Heaney _ North

    Is there life before death? That's chalked upIn Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,We hug our little destiny again.
    book-quotelifepoetry
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