Sky-born and royal,
snake-choker, dung-heaver,
his mind big with golden apples,
his future hung with trophies,
Hercules has the measure
of resistance and black powers
feeding off the territory.
Antaeus, the mould-hugger,
is weaned at last:
a fall was a renewal
but now he is raised up –
the challenger's intelligence
is a spur of light,
a blue prong graiping him
out of his element
into a dream of loss
and origins - the cradling dark
the river-veins, the secret gullies
of his strength,
the hatching grounds
of cave and souterrain,
he has bequeathed it all
to elegists. Balor will die
and Byrthnoth and Sitting Bull.
Hercules lifts his arms
in a remorseless V,
his triumph unassailed
by the powers he has shaken,
and lifts and banks Antaeus
high as a profiled ridge,
a sleeping giant,
pap for the dispossessed.
Other Seamus Heaney songs:
all Seamus Heaney songs all songs from 1975