The Disappearing Island - a poem by Seamus Heaney

Continuing on from previous blogpost's theme of islands, and keeping in tune with my abiding fascination with them, I here give you a short but haunting poem by Seamus Heaney, printed in his collection The Haw Lantern from 1987.


The Disappearing Island

Once we presumed to found ourselves for good
Between the blue hills and those sandless shores
Where we spent our desperate night in prayer and vigil,

Once we had gathered driftwood, made a hearth
And hung our cauldron like a firmament,
The island broke beneath us like a wave.

The land sustaining us seemed to hold firm
Only when we embraved it in extremis.
All I believe that happened there was a vision.