Seamus Heaney bog poem quotes

PUNISHMENT The one with the tribal intimate revenge

I who have stood dumb/when your betraying sisters,/cauled in tar,/wept by the railings,//who would connive/in civilised outrage/yet understand the exact/and tribal, intimate revenge.

PUNISHMENT Stones of silence

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

PUNISHMENT noose = ring

her noose a ring//to store/the memories of love.

PUNISHMENT little adultress

Little adulteress,/before they punished you

PUNISHMENT my poor scapegoat

undernourished, and your/tar-black face was beautiful./My poor scapegoat,

PUNISHMENT allusions to tarring and feathering

and your/tar-black face was beautiful. AND cauled in tar,

THE TOLLUND MAN comparing with nature, oneness

To see his peat-brown head,/The mild pods of his eye-lids,...His last gruel of winter seeds/Caked in his stomach,

THE TOLLUND MAN religous/baptism imagery

Bridegroom to the goddess,/She tightened her torc on him/And opened her fen,/Those dark juices working/Him to a saint's kept body,

THE TOLLUND MAN blasphemous imagery

I could risk blasphemy,/Consecrate the cauldron bog/Our holy ground and pray

THE TOLLUND MAN visceral imagery

The scattered, ambushed/Flesh of labourers,/Stockinged corpses/Laid out in the farmyards,

THE TOLLUND MAN allusion to railway sleepers

Tell-tale skin and teeth/Flecking the sleepers/Of four young brothers, trailed/For miles along the lines.

THE TOLLUND MAN accusations, country people

Watching the pointing hands/Of country people,/Not knowing their tongue.