PoemBogland
Author / PoetSeamus Heaney
TagsBog, Depth, History, Horizon

We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening–
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops’ eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.

They’ve taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They’ll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.

Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Region: Eastern Europe
Period: Contemporary
Awards: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature, Whitbread Book Award

more poems by Seamus Heaney

Poem NameTopic
Whatever You Say Say NothingConflict, Internment, Journalism
ValedictionAbsence, Emptiness, Love
The OtterIntimacy, Memory, Swimmer
PunishmentAdultery, Bog, Revenge
Personal HeliconDarkness, Memory, Reflection
Death of a NaturalistFlax, Frogs, Spawn
Blackberry-PickingBlackberries, Decay, Loss
Storm on the IslandFear, Isolation, Nature

all poems by Seamus Heaney

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