Heaney's "Had I not been awake is his best work,

>>9224984
When human beings found out about death

They sent the dog to Chukwu with a message:

They wanted to be let back to the house of life.

They didn’t want to end up lost forever

Like burnt wood disappearing into smoke

Or ashes that get blown away to nothing.

Instead they saw their souls in a flock at twilight

Cawing and headed back to the same old roosts

And the same bright airs and wing-stretchings

Each morning.

Death would be like a night spent in the wood:

At first light they’d be back in the house of life.

(The dog was meant to tell all this to Chukwu.)
But death and human beings took second place

When he trotted off the path and started barking

At an other dog in broad daylight just barking

Back at him from the far bank of a river.
And that is how the toad reached Chukwu first,

The toad who’d overheard in the beginning

What the dog was meant to tell.

‘Human beings,’ he said

(And here the toad was trusted absolutely),

‘Human beings want death to last forever.’
Then Chukwu saw the people’s souls in birds

Coming towards him like black spots off the sunset

To a place where there would be neither roosts

Not trees

Nor any way back to the house of life.

And his mind reddened and darkened all at once

And nothing that the dog would tell him later

Could change that vision. Great chiefs and great loves

In obliterated light, the toad in mud,

The dog crying out all night behind the corpse house.

>>9225045
This is from The Spirit Level, right? Definitely one of Heaney's better collections but I'd wager Human Chain is one of my favourites from him.

fuck I hate poetry so much

>>9224984
sylvia plath's daddy is the greatest poem ever written. prove me wrong.

>>9227000
lol

>>9224984

hon the bhoys, up da RA!

>>9227140
>Wat side of the ditch d'ye wan yer corpse dumped on hi ye proddy cunt? - Seamus Heaney circa 1973, Bellaghy

>>9227244
kek

This is beautiful. Reminds me of Frost.

File: check.jpg (95KB, 1200x797px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 1200x797px

>>9227000
>>9227244
>>9228233
The thread of gets. Check em'

Heaney's work is mostly really good. the collection that poem is in (District and Circle?) is really good from what I remember.

>>9228563
'Had I not been awake' is from Human Chain I believe, his last collection.

>>9228648
Thanks, anon.