In the second stanza, the importance of setting if further extended. Heaney employs personification to describe the characters’ surroundings: the ‘Traffic holding its breath’ and ‘Sky a tense diaphragm.’ The function of the use of personification is clear: by vitalizing the surroundings, it is almost as if the inanimate universe is actively and sentiently wrapping itself around the couple, for as previously established, Heaney has shifted absolute focus onto the narrator and his partner. The nature of this personification makes this point even clearer: both ‘holding its breath’ and ‘tense diaphragm’ convey a tone of almost asphyxiating tension and anticipation. The narrator and his partner are on a stage, being spectated by an entire inanimate world trying to suppress its presence so as to not distract the two characters. Yet a setting so vast as ‘Sky’ for example cannot be hidden; the two characters are being watched by the world and they know it, thus elevating a peculiar sense of stage fright and expectation.
Water imagery is another subtle device that Heaney uses to great effect in this poem. From start to finish, the poem is in close contact with water – in the first stanza they ‘crossed the quiet rive’ and in the final stanza Heaney describes ‘Still waters running deep // Along the embankment walk.’ The significance of this setting and imagery becomes clear when taking into consideration the asphyxiating tension Heaney builds up all throughout the poem. Within the boundaries of the poem, the water is ‘quiet’ and ‘Still’. However, as conveyed through devices such as the muting of senses, Heaney creates an atmosphere fraught with tension; a feeling of inevitable explosion, of a boiling pot about to tip over. Thus the significance of water is that Heaney implicitly conveys a feeling that at any moment the water could flood and pill over onto the dry ‘embankment’.
This particular mode of tension can be read in one of two ways, or perhaps both combined. Firstly, through the vastness of the river, Heaney could be conveying the absolute sheer weight of expectation that these two characters harbour. It is as if anticipation of the prospects of young love is like the contents of a reservoir threatening to burst through the dam. On perhaps a more adult level, Heaney could be conveying a sense of sexual tension. Isolated with each other an all described aspects, it seems almost jus ta matter of time before the protagonists’ animalistic tensions manifest to action; as if all it takes for the banks to flood is a gentle push. Nevertheless, in either sense, water serves to maximize a sense of impending breakthrough.
Heaney limits the poem to just the two protagonists. This is a deliberate decision on the poet’s part: by isolating characterization, Heaney conveys the feeling that for either character, there is but one destination: each other. It is an idyllic and arguably somewhat cliché concept of love; that certain pairs of people are fated for each other. Nevertheless, this is precisely the poet’s intention. By communicating such a cliché notion of fated love, Heaney emphasizes the naivety that characterizes young love. More than anything else perhaps, this poem is a celebration of young love in all its innocence.
Indeed, this sense of innocent naivety can be noticed in many more ways. This poem displays a straightforward simple ABCBDB rhyme scheme, each stanza neatly divided into six lines. Heaney does not seem to care for pretenses of sagely experience or ability; rather, like the ‘juvenilia’ works of teenage poetry, Heaney presents the structure of his poem with all the innocent naivety of the characters it portrays. It is a fitting stylistic choice to set the youthful tone of the poem.
It is important to analyze the characterization distinguishment at the end of the fourth stanza, where Heaney writes ‘Mushroom lves already // Had puffed and burst in hate,’ of which the latter line explicitly suggests that perhaps neither character is as innocent as previously thought. The mushroom imagery is peculiar; a mushroom is organic and living. In parallel, this suggests love is organic and living. Yet what this metaphor also suggests is a sense of loss; all living things necessarily die, and the narrator seems to be harboring a certain memory of mortified love. This may serve to explain the inundation of anxious tensions throughout the poem. It is an important decision on Heaney’s part for it adds dimensions not only to characterization but also to love. Despite the apparent bubbliness of it, there does, in fact, exist an ominous facet.
Despite this unique dimension, for the most part Heaney seems to revel in the youthfulness of his characters. The stylistic device that best portrays this is the bird imagery. Through metaphor the protagonists are likened to ‘a thrush linked on a hawk.’ The bird is no doubt one of the most ubiquitous symbols of freedom; through flight, birds have no boundaries. By equating the protagonists with birds, Heaney expresses a feeling of freedom, ability and potential that can’t be described in terms of human capability. More importantly perhaps, what enables these characters to reach these heights is the elation that they feed each other. The ‘thrush’ is ‘linked’ to the ‘hawk’; thus transfiguration is not possible for each character without the other. The ultimate implication for this metaphor is the sheer scale of euphoria that love can invoke: enough to make one fly.
In conclusion, this poem touches on several points regarding the issue of young love: naivety, innocence, anxiety and tension. Although the poet hints at a possible traumatic effect of love, Heaney’s greatest achievement here is the expression of euphoria, inviting the reader perhaps to strive to recreate the joys of innocent romance.