Bob Dylan And The Fighting Irish (Part VII – conclusion)

Bob Dylan And The Fighting Irish (Part VII)

by Larry Fyffe

Seamus Heaney be an Irish poet who’s influenced by fellow Irish poet Patrick Kavanaugh, a Post-Romantic.

AntiYeatian, the poem below; by death love can be taken away forever:

On Graflon Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts, and I not making hay
Oh I loved too much, and by such and such is happiness thrown away
(Patrick Kavanaugh: Raglan Road)

So best perhaps to take a devil-may-care attitude towards the matter – as expressed in the song lyrics beneath:

Go lightly from the ledge, babe
Go lightly on the ground
I'm not the one you want, babe
I'll only let you down
(Bob Dylan: It Ain't Me Babe)

Words can just get in the way of love relationships, sexual or otherwise, according to the lyrics in the song quoted below:

Now, when all the bandits that you turn your other cheek to
All lay down their bandanas and complain
And you want somebody you don't have to speak to
Won't you come see me Queen Jane
(Bob Dylan: Queen Jane Appoximately)

Poet Heaney depicts below the vacant micro-world that’s found in “Waiting For Godot”; Dante’s bigger Hell and Heaven be not there.

But the thoughts of a loving mother are; and that’s what makes all the difference.

Take what you gather from coincidence:

When all the others were away at mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes
They broke the silence, let fall one by one ....
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
(Seamus Heaney: When All The Others Were Away At Mass)

The larger Dante-like world is presented in the following song – though humorous, quite bleak that world is:

I took my potatoes
Down to be mashed
Then I made it over 
The million dollar bash
(Bob Dylan: Million Dollar Bash)

In “Waiting For Godot”, the only contented character apparentlty is the Nietzsche-like slave – therein, the bent-over man walks like a crab, and accepts his fate:

Reminds of the lines below:

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
(TS Eliot: The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock)

Humorous, the song lyrics be beneath:

Try to avoid the scandals ....
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handle
(Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues)

Not so much the following poem – irony there be; akin to William Wordsworth, spring’s a sign of an organic, regenerative spirit; but the son assists his father at his labour with a correlated iron pump:

In it's throat, ice founding itself
Upon iron. The handle
Paralysed at an angle
(Seamus Heaney: The Rite Of Spring)

Leave a Reply