To-night, a first movement, a pulse,
As if the rain in bogland gathered head
To slip and flood: a bog-burst,
A gash breaking open the ferny bed.
Your back is a firm line of eastern coast
And arms and legs are thrown
Beyond your gradual hills. I caress
The heaving province where our past has grown.
I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder
That you would neither cajole nor ignore.
Conquest is a lie. I grow older
Conceding your half-independant shore
Within whose borders now my legacy
Culminates inexorably.
II
And I am still imperially
Male, leaving you with pain,
The rending process in the colony,
The battering ram, the boom burst from within.
The act sprouted an obsinate fifth column
Whose stance is growing unilateral.
His heart beneath your heart is a wardrum
Mustering force. His parasitical
And ignorant little fists already
Beat at your borders and I know they're cocked
At me across the water. No treaty
I foresee will salve completely your tracked
And stretchmarked body, the big pain
That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again
This is from the North collection, which has a number of poems that contain numerous political references. This one is no exception. The title of the poem can be interpreted in multiple ways, one of which refers to the Act of Union of 1800 which united Ireland with England. It can also be a reference to England metaphorically raping Ireland.
Immediate action right from the start.
Referring to the subjects of his bog poems.
Could be referring to the pelvic floor breaking while giving birth.
Ireland has its back turned to England and wants to be free. This personifies Ireland.
Could be referring to the metaphorical pregnancy.
Violence and unrest.
England ruling Ireland, but is also geographically and physically taller.
Ireland.
Can't pacify or ignore England.
History.
Southern Ireland is rather independant.
The past that can't be stopped.
Impossible to stop.
Has command.
Patriarchy.
Figuratively referring to the pain of childbirth.
Ripping.
Referring to the metaphorical rape.
The Act of Union, a group of people who are against the country.
Gathering.
Calling England a parasite.
Sound of wardrums.
Provoking a violent response.
Good Friday.
Ireland is permanently scarred.
Referring to how Ireland is scarred.
Vulnerable and exposed.
Political lexical field.