Dying Embers out now

Dying Embers out now

Friday 30 August 2013

Seamus Heany and Refugee Blues

I was saddened to hear of Seamus Heaney's death, so I thought I'd post one of my favourite of his poems, Had I not been awake. It is the first in his collection, Human Chain, first published in 2010.


Had I not been awake
By Seamus Heaney

Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore
.
And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence:
Had I not been awake I would have missed it
.
It came and went too unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Hurtling like an animal at the house,
.
A courier blast that there and then
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
Afterwards. And not now.


RIP Seamus Heaney.


I was reading my copy of Selected Poems by WH Auden recently, and came across one I had not read for many years; Refugee Blues. It struck me that it is just as relevant now as it was when it was written; March 1939. Read it and weep for the plight of displaced persons in the face of the modern political landscape.


Refugee Blues 
By WH Auden

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. 


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for posting this. I saw Heaney at a reading a few years ago and was sorry to wake up to the news this morning.

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