Read Online New and Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney - Free Book Online Page A

hidden still,
       
     
    smelled fumes from his censer
in the first smokes of morning.
    Next thing he was making a progress
       
     
    through gaps, stepping out sites,
sinking his crozier deep
    in the fort-hearth.
       
     
    If he had stuck to his own
cramp-jawed abbesses and intoners
    dibbling round the enclosure,
       
     
    his Latin and blather of love,
his parchments and scheming
    in letters shipped over water –
       
     
    but no, he overbore
with his unctions and orders,
    he had to get in on the ground.
       
     
    History that planted its standards
on his gables and spires
ousted me to the marches
       
     
    of skulking and whingeing.
Or did I desert?
    Give him his due, in the end
       
     
    he opened my path to a kingdom
of such scope and neuter allegiance
my emptiness reigns at its whim.

The Master
     
     
    He dwelt in himself
    like a rook in an unroofed tower.
       
     
    To get close I had to climb long
and hard up deserted ramparts
and not flinch, not raise an eye
to search for an eye on the watch
    from his coign of seclusion.
       
     
    Deliberately he would unclasp
his book of withholding
a page at a time and it was nothing
arcane, just the old rules
we all had inscribed on our slates.
Each character blocked on the parchment secure
in its volume and measure.
    Each maxim given its space.
       
     
    Tell the truth. Do not be afraid .
Durable, obstinate notions,
like quarrymen’s hammers and wedges proofed
by intransigent service.
Like coping stones where you rest
    in the balm of the wellspring.
       
     
    How flimsy I felt climbing down
the unrailed stairs on the wall,
hearing the purpose and venture
in a wingflap above me.

The Scribes
     
     
    I never warmed to them.
If they were excellent they were petulant
and jaggy as the holly tree
they rendered down for ink.
And if I never belonged among them,
    they could never deny me my place.
       
     
    In the hush of the scriptorium
a black pearl kept gathering in them
like the old dry glut inside their quills.
In the margin of texts of praise
they scratched and clawed.
They snarled if the day was dark
or too much chalk had made the vellum bland
    or too little left it oily.
       
     
    Under the rumps of lettering
they herded myopic angers.
Resentment seeded in the uncurling
    fernheads of their capitals.
       
     
    Now and again I started up
miles away and saw in my absence
the sloped cursive of each back and felt them
    perfect themselves against me page by page.
       
     
    Let them remember this not inconsiderable
contribution to their jealous art.

Holly
     
     
    It rained when it should have snowed.
    When we went to gather holly
       
     
    the ditches were swimming, we were wet
    to the knees, our hands were all jags
       
     
    and water ran up our sleeves.
    There should have been berries
       
     
    but the sprigs we brought into the house
    gleamed like smashed bottle-glass.
       
     
    Now here I am, in a room that is decked
    with the red-berried, waxy-leafed stuff,
       
     
    and I almost forget what it’s like
    to be wet to the skin or longing for snow.
       
     
    I reach for a book like a doubter
    and want it to flare round my hand,
       
     
    a black-letter bush, a glittering shield-wall
cutting as holly and ice.

An Artist
     
     
    I love the thought of his anger.
His obstinacy against the rock, his coercion
of the substance from green apples.
       
     
    The way he was a dog barking
at the image of himself barking.
And his hatred of his own embrace
of working as the only thing that worked –
the vulgarity of expecting ever
gratitude or admiration, which
would mean a stealing from him.
       
     
    The way his fortitude held and hardened
because he did what he knew.
His forehead like a hurled boule
travelling unpainted space
behind the apple and behind the mountain.

In Illo Tempore
     
     
    The big missal splayed
and dangled silky ribbons
    of emerald and purple and watery white.
       
     
    Intransitively we