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English

POEM

FOLLOWER-SEAMUS HEANEY

SEAMUS HEANEY

SEAMUS HEANEYIrish PoetBorn on 1939First book – “Eleven Poems” (1965)Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature (1995)Other works- “Selected poems 1965-1975”“Preoccupations: Selected prose 1968-1978”

My father worked with a horse plough,His shoulders globed like a full sail strung

Between the shafts and the furrow.The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wingAnd fit the bright-pointed sock.

The sod rolled over without breaking.At the head rig,  with a single pluck.

Of reins, the sweating team turned roundAnd back into the land. His eye

Narrowed and angled at the ground

Mapping the furrow exactly.

FOLLOWER

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,Fell sometimes on the polished sod;Sometimes he rode me on his back

Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,To close one eye, stiffen my arm.

All I ever did was followIn his broad shadow around the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,Yapping always. But today

It is my father who keeps stumblingBehind me, and will not go away.

DIFFICULT WORDSStrain-/ stein /-to show effects of worry or pressure.Sod-/sod/-a layer of earth with grass growing on it.Rein-/rein/-long narrow leather band that is fastened

around a horse’s neck to it.

HINTSThe speaker’s father was a farmer.

He was an expert in farming.

The speaker wanted to be like his father, a good farmer

DEVELOPING APPRECIATIONIMAGES

Simile

“His shoulders globed like a full sail strung”.

Rhyming words.

Plough – furrow.

Strung-Tongue.

Rhyming Scheme.

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