Dr. Irene De Angelis

University of Turin

‘Sad Presentiments of What Must Come to Pass’:Seamus Heaney and Violence

‘All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.’

(W. B. Yeats)

The bees build in the crevicesOf loosening masonry, and thereThe mother birds bring grubs and flies.My wall is loosening; honey-bees,Come build in the empty house of the stare. … A barricade of stone or of wood;Some fourteen days of civil war;Last night they trundled down the roadThat dead young soldier in his blood:Come build in the empty house of the stare.

Seamus Heaney, 13th April 1939-30th August 2013