A Mite-Box The poem renews and down-sizes the charity theme in Human Chain, from large-scale international aid to the poet’s experiences as a youngster carrying a collecting-box round the parish in search of donations towards ‘foreign missions’. Despite the numbing effect of stroke the memory triggered from Heaney’s childhood is very much alive: But still/ to feel; Heaney was skilled at the collector’s rôle adopting an entreating pose, with cupped palm, and feeling with a growing sense of achievement brought about by the chunk and clink of coins donated by willing if badly-off neighbours until his box was Full to its slotted lid with copper coins. The cheaply-made, [...]