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PART ISAN REVIEW
I wrote a littl e sequence of poems then call ed "Sweeney R edivivus,"
a kind of "Sweeney Rides Again," whi ch was also a way of rhyming
H eaney's experi ence with Sweeney's. I'll read o ne of th e sequence call ed
" In the Beech." It combin es Sweeney the mad king in the tree and m yself
in a beech tree in 1942 when Ameri ca n troops arrived in C ounty D erry
to train for D -Day. I felt like a littl e Tarza n watching th e arrival of tanks
in the farmland . Anyway thi s is half Sweeney , half Heaney. " In the Beech."
I was a lookout pos ted and fo rgotten .
On one side under me, th e concrete road.
O n the oth er, the bull oc ks' covert,
th e breath and plas ter of a drin king place
where th e school- leaver di scovered peace
to tou ch himself in th e reek of turn ed- up mu d .
And th e tree itself a strangeness and a comfo rt,
as mu ch a column as a bole. The very ivy
pu zzled its milk- tooth frills and tapers
over th e grain: was it bark o r masonry?
I watched the red-b ri ck chimney rea r
its stamen co urse by course,
and th e steeplejacks up th ere at th eir anti cs
like ni es aga in st the mountain.
I felt the ta nks' adva nce beginning
at th e cynosure o f th e growth rin gs,
then w in ced at th eir imperium refi·eshed
in eac h powde red bolt mark on th e concrete.
And th e pilot w ith hi s goggles back came in
so low I could see th e coc kpit ri vets.
My hidebound boundary tree. My tree of knowledge.
My thi ck-tapped, soft- fl edged, airy li stenin g pos t.
Thi s " Sweeney R edivivus," Sweeney riding aga in , has adventures and rare
encounters and so on and in one of th e poems remembers meeting a mas–
ter. Now Heaney too had met a mas ter with Bob Hass o ne night in
Berkel ey, so it was Mil osz I was thinkin g o f wh en I wrote "The Mas ter."
H e's hidden in th ere.
