Mid-term Break

Mid-term Break

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close

At two o’ clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying-

He had always taken funerals in his stride

And big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed

By old men standing up to shake my hand.

And tell me they were sorry for my trouble

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest

Away at school, as my mother held my hand.

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs

At ten o’ clock the ambulance arrived

With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up to the room, Snowdrops

And candles soothed the beside; I saw him

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple

He lay in the four foot box as in his cot

No gaudy scares, the bumper knocked him clear

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney 

Seamus Heaney was born in a small agricultural town in Northern Ireland. Heaney is an Irish poet and he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995. In 1957, he went to Belfast to study literature at queen’s University. Then, he worked as a lecturer in 1965, but he was highly worried over the continuous clashes between the Roman Catholic and protestants. So Heaney moved to the Republic of Ireland in 1972. Later he worked as a lecturer in Harvard University and the University of Oxford.

In his poetry, he mainly focuses at the physical and rural surroundings of his childhood in Northern  Ireland. His poems are often short, punctuated by the intensity silence of the people he describes.

Among the collection of his poetry, the most significant are

·         Strom on the Island

·         Perch

·         Blackberry-picking

·         Death of a Naturalist

·         Digging

·         At a potato Digging

·         Follower

·         Mid term break

Heaney’s latest was the English translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem ‘Beowulf”. It became the best seller in United states and United Kingdom in 2000.

Review of the poem "The seven Ages of Man"

Review  of  "The Seven Ages of Man"

The Seven Ages of man written by William Shakespeare discusses about a person’s life, in its various stage from birth to death. During the life span of a person he/she has to undergo different experiences. The poet peeps into this wonderful nature of life. As a forward to this complexity of life, the poet brings an ideal definition.

               “All the world’s a stage,

                And all the men and women merely players”

He metaphorically takes the world as a stage. On this stage all men and women play as actors and actresses and the play different roles. They enter the stage and exist. With his effective metaphor, Shakespeare presents the reality of life as it is defined in many religions.

The poet brings out different characters to explain the stages of man. They are infant, school boy, lover, soldier, justice and old man. By using these characters, poet excellently derive the idea expected.

The poet also builds up of visual imagery of these characters. The reader can draw up the mental pictures of,      

          An infant who is mewling and puking

         A school boy who is whining and unwilling going to school

         A lover who is always sighing and singing woeful ballads

         A soldier seeking bubble reputation

        A justice who has a very well-informed look

        An old man wearing spectacles

The Seven Ages of Man

The Seven Ages of Man 

All the world’s a stage

And all the men and women merely players

They have their exists and their entrances

And one man in his time plays many parts

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms

And then the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school, And then the lover

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress eyebrow Then a soldier

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice

In fair round belly with good capon lined

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut

Full of wise saws and modern instances

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’s Pantaloon

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side

His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all

That ends this strange eventful history

Is second childishness and mere oblivion

Sans teeth, Sans eyes, Sans taste, Sans everything

William Shakespeare