Quotes from Seamus Heaney

Bear with the present; what will be will be. The future is cloth waiting to be cut.

Afterwards a boy-child was born to Shield, a cub in the yard, a comfort sent by God...

Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark, nursed a hard grievance.

for who could be blind to the evidence of his eyes, the obviousness of that hall-watcher's hate? Whoever escaped kept a weather-eye open and moved away.

Until a man has passed this test of office And proved himself in the exercise of power, He can't be truly known--for what he is, I mean, In his heart and mind and capabilities. Worst is the man who has all the good advise And then because his nerve fails, fails to act In accordance with it, as a leader should.

You can't, friend, have your palm greased and expect To get away clean. Everything comes out.

a battle-scarred veteran, bowed with age, would begin to remember the martial deeds of his youth and prime and be overcome as the past welled up in his wintry heart.

So they duly arrived in their grim war-graith and gear at the hall, and, weary from the sea, stacked wide shields of the toughest hardwood against the wall

Whoever has been spared the worst is lucky. When high gods shake a house That family is going to feel the blow Generation after generation. It starts like an undulation underwater, A surge that hauls black sand up off the bottom, Then turns itself into a tidal current Lashing the shingle and shaking promontories.

Well has it been said: the man obsessed Is a cock of the walk in a hurry towards the worst.

Chorus: Steadfast Antigone, Never before did Death Open his stone door To one so radiant. You would not live a lie. Vindicated, lauded, Age and disease outwitted, YOu go with head held high.

Chorus: Consider well, my son. All men make mistakes. But mistakes don't have to be forever, They can be admitted and atoned for. It's the overbearing man who is to blame.

Wise conduct is the key to happiness. Always rule by gods and reverence them. Those who overbear will be brought to grief. Fate will flail them on its winnowing floor And in due season teach them to be wise.

His brain convulsed, his mind split open. Vertigo, hysteria, lurchings and launchings came over him, he staggered and flapped desperately, he was revolted by the thought of known places and dreamed strange migrations.

The fabled warrior in his warshirt and helmet trusted in his own strength entirely and went under the crag. No coward path.

he handed down orders for men to work on a great mead-hall meant to be a wonder of the world forever; it would be his throne-room and there he would dispense his God-given goods to young and old

The hall towered, its gables wide and high and awaiting a barbarous burning. That doom abided, but in time it would come

No trembling harp, no tuned timber, no tumbling hawk swerving through the hall, no swift horse pawing the courtyard. Pillage and slaughter have emptied the earth of entire peoples. And so he mourned as he moved about the world, deserted and alone, lamenting his unhappiness day and night, until death's flood brimmed up in his heart.

You are free now to move forward to meet Hrothgar, in helmets and armour, but shields must stay here and spears be stacked until the outcome of the audience is clear.

And hope and history rhyme.

He was swiftly overwhelmed in the shallows, prodded by barbed boar-spears, cornered, beaten, pulled up on the bank, a strange lake-birth, a loathsome catch...

Many a spear dawn-cold to the touch will be taken down and waved on high; the swept harp won't waken warriors, but the raven winging darkly over the doomed will have news, tidings for the eagle of how he hoked and ate, how the wolf and he made short work of the dead.

Famous for his deeds a warrior may be, but it remains a mystery where his life will end, when he may no longer dwell in the mead-hall among his own.

The hall towered, its gables wide and high and awaiting a barbarous burning. [ll. 81-83]