Heaney, Seamus: Glanmore Sonnets III

This evening the cuckoo and the corncrake

(So much, too much) consorted at twilight.

It was all crepuscular and iambic.

Out on the field a baby rabbit

Took his bearings, and I knew the deer

(I’ve seen them too from the window of the house,

Like connoisseurs, inquisitive of air)

Were careful under larch and May-green spruce.

I had said earlier, ‘I won’t relapse

From this strange loneliness I’ve brought us to.

Dorothy and William—’ She interrupts:

‘You’re not going to compare us two...?’

Outside a rustling and twig-combing breeze

Refreshes and relents. Is cadences.