An Advancement of Learning by Seamus Heaney
An Advancement of Learning by Seamus Heaney

An Advancement of Learning

Seamus Heaney * Track #4 On Death Of A Naturalist

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An Advancement of Learning by Seamus Heaney

Performed by
Seamus Heaney
About

The title of this poem, ‘An Advancement of Learning’, is taken from a book by the sixteenth century philosopher Francis Bacon ‘The Proficience and Advancement of Learning.’ Heaney adapts it to suit the purpose of his poem.

The scene is set, a boy walks home in rural surroundings and sees a rat. He...

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An Advancement of Learning Annotated

I took the embankment path
(As always, deferring
The bridge). The river nosed past,
Pliable, oil-skinned, wearing

A transfer of gables and sky.
Hunched over the railing,
Well away from the road now, I
Considered the dirty-keeled swans.

Something slobbered curtly, close,
Smudging the silence: a rat
Slimed out of the water and
My throat sickened so quickly that

I turned down the path in cold sweat
But God, another was nimbling
Up the far bank, tracing its wet
Arcs on the stones. Incredibly then

I established a dreaded
Bridgehead. I turned to stare
With deliberate, thrilled care
At my hitherto snubbed rodent.

He clockworked aimlessly a while,
Stopped, back bunched and glistening,
Ears plastered down on his knobbed skull,
Insidiously listening.

The tapered tail that followed him,
The raindrop eye, the old snout:
One by one I took all in.
He trained on me. I stared him out

Forgetting how I used to panic
When his grey brothers scraped and fed
Behind the hen-coop in our yard,
On ceiling boards above my bed.

This terror, cold, wet-furred, small-clawed,
Retreated up a pipe for sewage.
I stared a minute after him.
Then I walked on and crossed the bridge.

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