To work, her dumb lunge says, is to move a certain mass ...through a certain distance, is to pull your weight and feel exact and equal to it. Feel dr… - Seamus Heaney

Here is the great paradox of poetry and of the imaginative arts in general. Faced with the brutality of the historical onslaught, they are practically useless. Yet they verify our singularity, they strike out the ore of self which lies at the base of every individuated life. In one sense the efficacy of poetry is nil – no lyric has ever stopped a tank. In another sense it is unlimited. It is like the writing in the sand in the face of which accusers and accused are left speechless and renewed.

My flesh was not for feasting on

Wyrd oft nered
unfaegne, eorl, ponne his ellen deah.

Often, for undaunted courage,
fate spares the man it has not already marked.