The diamond absolutes. I am neither internee nor informer; An inner emigre, grown long-haired And thoughtful; a wood-kerne Escaped from the massacre… - Seamus Heaney

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The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner emigre, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne

Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;

Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing tose.

English
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About Seamus Heaney

Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright, and translator. In 1995 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Seamus Justin Heaney
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Additional quotes by Seamus Heaney

"A landscape fossilized,
It's stone-wall patternings
Repeated before our eyes
In the stone walls of Mayo.
Before I turned to go

He talked about persistence,
A congruence of lives,
How, stubbed and cleared of stones,
His home accrued growth rings
Of iron, flint and bronze
- "Belderg

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Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

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