And then Moling said:
85
I am standing beside Sweeney’s tomb
remembering him. Wherever he
migrated in flight from home
will always be dear to me.
Because Sweeney loved Glen Bolcain
I learned to love it, too. He’ll miss
the fresh streams tumbling down,
the green beds of watercress.
He would drink his sup of water from
the well yonder we have called
the Madman’s Well; now his name
keeps brimming in its sandy cold.
I waited long but knew he’d come.
I welcomed, sped him as a guest.
With holy viaticum
I limed him for the Holy Ghost.
Because Sweeney was a pilgrim
to the stoup of every well
and every green-frilled, cress-topped stream,
their water’s his memorial.
Now, if it be the will of God,
rise, Sweeney, take this guiding hand
that has to lay you in the sod
and draw the dark blinds of the ground.
I ask a blessing, by Sweeney’s grave.
His memory flutters in my breast.
His soul roosts in the tree of love.
His body sinks in its clay nest.
86 After that, Sweeney rose out of his swoon. Moling took him by the hand and both went towards the door of the church. When they reached the door Sweeney leaned his shoulders against the jamb and breathed a loud sigh. His spirit fled to heaven and his body was given an honourable burial by Moling.
87 These have been some of the stories about the adventures of Sweeney, son of Colman Cuar, king of Dal-Arie.
BOOKS BY SEAMUS HEANEY
POETRY
Death of a Naturalist
Wintering Out
North
Field Work
Poems 1965–1975
Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish
Station Island
The Haw Lantern
Selected Poems 1966–1987
Seeing Things
Sweeney’s Flight (with photographs by Rachel Giese)
The Spirit Level
CRITICISM
Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–78
The Government of the Tongue
The Redress of Poetry
PLAYS
The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes
TRANSLATIONS
Laments: Poems of Jan Kochanowski (with Stanislaw Baranczak)
Copyright © 1983 by Seamus Heaney
All rights reserved
First published in Ireland in 1983 by
Field Day Theatre Company Limited, Derry
First American edition, 1984
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Heaney, Seamus. / Sweeney astray.
1. Suibhne Geilt—Poetry. 2. Magh Rath, Battle of, 637—Poetry. I. Buile Suibhne Geilt. II. Title.
PR6058.E2S9 1984 821'.914 84-1512
eISBN 9781466855809
First eBook edition: October 2013