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User Rating: |
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7.6
/10
(81
votes)
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All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampots full of the jellied
Specks to range on the window-sills at home,
On shalves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hadges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
Seamus Heaney
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Read poems about / on: frog, swimming, weather, school, spring, sun, rain, green, water, home, death, butterfly, running
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Comments about this poem (Death of a Naturalist
by
Seamus Heaney
) |
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comments about this poem (Death of a Naturalist by
Seamus Heaney
)
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Ahmad Shiddiqi
(10/9/2008 9:48:00 PM) |
straightforward and honest! remain me of Mozart's Requiem! keep writing! could you read and comment on my poems too? thank you.
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Johnny Muir
(6/17/2008 7:55:00 AM) |
Hi, I work for the BBC in Belfast and am working on a documentary to mark Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday. His work is studied (and written about in exams) by people all over the world and I am trying to find out what impact it has them. In this poem he writes about events in his childhood in Co Derry - yet it clearly has a resonance today. I would love to hear anyone's comments on what Heaney's poetry means to them. Tell me about individual poems that have made an impact on you and why!
Cheers,
johnny.muir@bbc.co.uk
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Art Girl
(2/22/2007 4:04:00 PM) |
We acted this poem out in school. I was a frog. That was a weird day. But the poem is good
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Katie Lawrence
(5/22/2006 9:21:00 AM) |
yeah my anthology says sails but snails seems more appropriate. i have my exam tomorrow :) lets just hope i dont have a question about this poem: P
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Julia Colley
(5/20/2006 7:38:00 AM) |
In reply to your question about whether it reads 'sails' or 'snails', well i'm currently studying it for my GCSE exam on Tuesday and in our copy of the anthology it reads 'sails' which i guess would make way more sense than 'snails'! what versions have you come across that say 'snails'?
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Margaret Roberts
(10/16/2004 2:15:00 AM) |
their loose necks pulsed like snails
some versions read
their loose necks pulsed like sails
Which is correct?
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