Heaney’s ‘The Forge’ and Barellan’s Good Old Times Festival

Heaney’s ‘The Forge’ and Barellan’s Good Old Times Festival

This blog is usually for words composed by me, which, may resemble something vaguely like poetry. Having attended Barellan’s ‘Good Old Times Festival‘ yesterday, and having seen a blacksmith at his forge, I was delighted to come upon the late Seamus Heaney’s poem of the same name. Thanks to Genius for providing an online text for us. More information can be found on Seamus Heaney on his page at the Poetry Foundation.

The Forge by Seamus Heaney

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.