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Now It’s High Watermark And Floodtide In The Heart And Time To Go. The Sea-nymphs In The Spray Will Be The Chorus Now. What’s Left To Say? Suspect Too Much Sweet-talk But Never Close Your Mind. It Was A Fortunate Wind That Blew Me Here. I Leave Half-ready To Believe That A Crippled Trust Might Walk And The Half-true Rhyme Is Love.

-Seamus Heaney

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Now It’s High Watermark

Seamus Heaney

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Now It’s High Watermark And Floodtide In The Heart And Time To Go. The Sea-nymphs In The Spray Will Be The Chorus Now. What’s Left To Say? Suspect Too Much Sweet-talk But Never Close Your Mind. It Was A Fortunate Wind That Blew Me Here. I Leave Half-ready To Believe That A Crippled Trust Might Walk And The Half-true Rhyme Is Love.

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Deep Relationship

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Once Upon A Time

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Between My Finger And My Thumb The Squat Pen Rests; Snug As A Gun. ~from The Poem "digging

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I Always Believed That Whatever Had To Be Written Would Somehow Get Itself Written.

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So Hope For A Great Sea-change On The Far Side Of Revenge. Believe That Further Shore Is Reachable From Here. Believe In Miracles And Cures And Healing Wells.

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Behaviour That's Admired Is The Path To Power Among People Everywhere.

My Teaching Was Animated By What I Was Reading And Being Excited By As A Poet.

A Public Expectation, It Has To Be Said, Not Of Poetry As Such But Of Political Positions Variously Approvable By Mutually Disapproving Groups.

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The Appointment [in Harvard] Gave Me Economic Safety, Writerly Support, And Intellectual Self-respectplus Eight Months To Myself Every Year.

All I Know Is A Door Into The Dark

Nowadays, What An Award Gives Is A Sense Of Solidarity With The Poetry Guild, As It Were: Sustenance Coming From The Assent Of Your Peers On The Judging Panel.

God Is A Foreman With Certain Definite Views Who Orders Life In Shifts Of Work And Leisure.

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Anyone With Gumption And A Sharp Mind Will Take The Measure Of Two Things: What's Said And What's Done.

If Self Is A Location, So Is Love: Bearings Taken, Markings, Cardinal Points, Options, Obstinacies, Dug Heels, And Distance, Here And There And Now And Then, A Stance.

You Had To Come Back To Learn How To Lose Yourself, To Be Pilot And Stray-witch, Hansel And Gretel In One.

Losing Yourself

The Aim Of Poetry And The Poet Is Finally To Be Of Service, To Ply The Effort Of The Individual Into The Larger Work Of The Community As A Whole.

Not To Learn Irish Is To Miss The Opportunity Of Understanding What Life In This Country Has Meant And Could Mean In A Better Future. It Is To Cut Oneself Off From Ways Of Being At Home. If We Regard Self-understanding, Mutual Understanding, Imaginative Enhancement, Cultural Diversity And A Tolerant Political Atmosphereas A Desirable Attainments, We Should Remember That A Knowledge Of The Irish Language Is An Essential Element In Their Realisation.

Hope For A Great Sea-change Timid To Rebuke And Too Petty To Forgive.

If Poetry And The Arts Do Anything, They Can Fortify Your Inner Life, Your Inwardness.

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