8/9/2019 5b - Follower

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Miracle on St Davids Day

Follower

Structure and Form

Each verse contains four lines which rhyme (exactly or closely) alternately. The

first five verses have a regular metre, each line having eight syllables. The lastverse, to emphasise the confusion of his adult feelings towards his now old and

more dependent father, has a different metre. The first, third and fourth lines havenine syllables and the second only seven.

Comparative Ideas

Family relationships Any Heaney poem here (except Death of a Naturalistand

The Barn) Old Man, Old Man, Once Upon A Time. Look at the ways Heaney

(and/or other poets) remembers their parents and how their relationships have

changed, even sometimes reversed. In the case ofOnce Upon A Time the fatherenvies the son the openness and honesty he once had before a different culture

forced him to conform to behaviour he found hypocritical and false.