PoemPunishment
Author / PoetSeamus Heaney
TagsAdultery, Bog, Revenge, Silence

I can feel the tug
of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front.

It blows her nipples
to amber beads,
it shakes the frail rigging
of her ribs.

I can see her drowned
body in the bog,
the weighing stone,
the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first
she was a barked sapling
that is dug up
oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head
like a stubble of black corn,
her blindfold a soiled bandage,
her noose a ring

to store
the memories of love.
Little adulteress,
before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur

of your brains exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles’ webbing
and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

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
Personal HeliconDarkness, Memory, Reflection
Death of a NaturalistFlax, Frogs, Spawn
BoglandBog, Depth, History
Blackberry-PickingBlackberries, Decay, Loss
Storm on the IslandFear, Isolation, Nature

all poems by Seamus Heaney

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