Seamus Heaney

The poems in Seamus Heaney's collection The Spirit Level keep discovering the possibilities of 'a new beginning' in all kinds of subjects and circumstances. What is at stake, in poem after poem, is the chance of buoyancy and balance, physical, spiritual and political. Private memories, classical scenes, humble domestic objects - a whitewash brush, a sofa, a swing - are endowed with talismanic significance, while friends and relatives are invoked for their promise and steadfastness. Throughout the collection, Heaney addresses his concerns, which inevitably include the political situation in his native Northern Ireland, in a poetry that never ceases to be fluid, alert and completely truthful.

The Spirit Level

Klára Kováčiková 

(She) was like a silver vein in heavy clay.

Night water glittering in the light of day.

Love brought me that far by the hand, without

And knowledgeable, contrary as be damned;

Then just kept standing there, not letting go.

Drive them back to the wine dark taste of home,

Jam ladled thick and steaming down the sunlight.

Flight of small plinkings from a dulcimer

Like feminine rhymes migrating to the north

Where you faced the music and the ache of summer 

And Earth's foreknowledge gathered in the Earth

And if the glazes, as you say, bring down the sun,

Your potter's wheel is bringing up the earth.

At that stage you were swimming in the sea

Or running from it, luminious with plankton,

The Spirit Level

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