‘Counting bells knelling classes to a close.’
The meaning of the word ‘knelling’ is dying out, and in this metaphor, Seamus Heaney is trying to put something as normal as waiting for the end of class into a very boring image. That first stanza also gives the image of waiting, waiting for something and that time is passing.
The second stanza describes the student arriving home, and seeing his shocked father crying and in a poor state:
‘In the porch I met my father crying-
He had always taken funerals in his stride’
Seamus Heaney echoes in the reader the pain his father is probably suffering from and that it might be due to the death of a son. He also uses the words ‘hard blow’, later on in the stanza, not only meaning that the father is suffering from pain and shock. The line ‘He had always taken funerals in his stride ‘ shows that its unusual for his father to be crying at the news of death and usually takes them in his stride, as if it was an occasion but would stand strong.
The third stanza consists of many devises. The stanza starts of with the image of a baby:
‘The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram’
This image of a baby. The expressions: cooed, laughed and rocked ads to the tension as a contradiction due to the fact that baby has not felt or experienced a change in the atmosphere.
The persona felt embarrassed because of many reasons. He was the youngest of all the ‘Old men’ and they all acted sympathetic and as if he (the persona) was an adult.
The symbol of shaking ones hand shows respect and a symbolic gesture towards one, in this case the persona.
‘…”sorry for my trouble”…’
This extract in stanza four show some sort of euphemism, to show pain and loss. This line was said as the men were shaking the persona’s hand.
‘Whispers informed stranger I was the eldest,’
Whispers sets the tone of voice the people at the funeral are using, and that the words, and comments were past around in this sense of discretion, for respect of the persona.
Working with the image of his mother holding his hand gives us a picture of comfort and protection.
Heaney then brings empathy to mother, stating that she lets out angry, tearless sighs:
‘…coughed out angry, tearless sighs.’
The usage of angry, tearless and sighs conveys shock and horror towards the mother’s and she is hurt too much to an extent she’s controlled by shock and dismay. It can also be seen that the mother is trying to set an example or showing she is a strong woman emotionally and is the narrator’s protection and comfort, from pain and endurance.
The following stanza turns to the next day from the funeral To the scene of the narrator visiting his brother. Under the tension of him visiting ‘for the first time in six weeks’ the atmosphere is calmed and softened by the images of ‘snowdrops and candles…’
Heaney uses the images of snowdrops because of their softness and gentleness, the image of the candle as the warmth in the room.
‘Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple’
Having the word ‘wearing’ makes it seem incredible that it is such a small wound, yet it causes much damage to the extent death. The line also explains the shape of the bruise, the shape of a poppy, a sign of the accident that evidently killed him. The sign of the accident is shown by the line:
‘…knocked him clear.’
Heaney uses the age of the youngster as a measurement for his coffin of ‘box’ as Heaney called it. ‘a foot for every year’ tells us the age of the brother, and it re-enforces age and irony of his age and the size of his coffin.
Everything draws down to this and now the persona eventually feels the significance and loss due to the tragic accident on his brother.
