Edward Thomas on the Lagans Road

Once upon a time the ghost of an iconic WW1 poet came home (the poem is set after the end of WW2) along a road familiar to the poet where the ghosts of other ‘locals’ are also recalled. Heaney has returned to the spot.

The opening is dramatic: in flash-back the poet hears a ‘presence’, a ‘ghost’ as yet unseen: a step/ On the grass-crowned road, the whip of daisy-heads/ On the toes of boots.

The watcher is not alone: a man and woman are also present in their own little hide-away, engaged in passionate but amateur sexual foreplay: Fully clothed, strong-arming each other. They are minded to leave.

The scene returns from flash-back to the Heaney’s poetic present: And now the road is empty. No ‘revenant’ this time, Nothing but air and light between their love-nest/ And the bracken hillside.

His memory is of a blessed moment: Utter evening, as it was in the beginning (‘is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen’, parodying the religious Blessing), assembling the remembered come-and-go of lovers and providing the poetic charge that brings on Edward Thomas remembered, his long-legged self in uniform and resembling similar young fighting-men two generations later: Demobbed (officially released from military duty) and ‘not much changed’. This phrase was one of relief for their nearest and dearest: survivors of WW2 were often broken, shell-shocked men, even if physically uninjured. These demobbed soldiers were sandy-moustached and freckled/ From being, they said, with Monty in the desert.

• Denis O’Driscoll’s interviews with Heaney in Stepping Stones, Faber 2009 are accompanied by hand-drawn maps that set out the Heaney neighbourhood ; the Lagans Road is very much part of it;
• Field Marshall Montgomery was a WW2 ‘hero’, leading his so-called Desert Rats to victory over Rommel in North Africa; there was some kudos attached to having been a Desert Rat;
• the state of secondary roads in rural Ulster described: the grass-crowned road, the whip of daisy-heads/ On the toes of boots;

.

• some 20 lines composed of sections linked by half lines; lines based on 10 syllables; no rhyme scheme;
• the poet’s use of the present tense lends actuality to his memory
• a single line that sets out  the huge spiritual pleasure of the moment stands apart;
• the use of punctuation including dashes and enjambed lines invites the rhythms and emphases of oral delivery;
• early assonant effect of [e] is carried through the piece step/  heads/ hedge/ Theresa Brennan later senses/ empty/ nest/ remembered/ long-legged self/ Edward/ Evans/ freckled/ said/ desert; also paired [ei] daisy/ Eamon/
• Initial [əʊ] road/ toes/ clothed/ go is interwoven with a cluster of [ɒ] strong/ gone/ on and [ai] quiet/ I/ rise/ light/ hillside where I lie; [ʌ] utter/ Until;
• some alliteration: lovers/ long-legged self/ Lagans/ Leitrim/ freckled
• sandy desert sand and gingerish complexion;