2001 ~ Lambert Poetry PaperThe Strand at Lough BegThe Part of this poem that is to be looked at first is imagery in the title of the poem. Seamus Heaney starts us off by giving us this picture of the Strand at Lough Beg, which is the shore of a lake. Already the reader is given the starting point of this story; the Kind of person that Colum McCartney is. Seamus Heamey begins the poem with an image of isolation, confusion, and the loss of safety. Heaney describes what happen the night that his cousin was killed: Leaving the white glow of the filling stationsAnd a few lonely street lamps among the fieldsYou climbed the hills towards Newtownhamilton Past the Fews Forest. Out beneath the stars- (lines 1-4)The first few lines describe how his cousin started out in the glow of the gas station where he was, and him driving off to an open area in a town with the stars above him. The light here represented safety. Colum has started off in a situation where he was very close to this light: where there was, most likely, a store and other people. After he is done at the gas station he then drives away. Heaney gives us the image of the lampposts passing by as he drove. This shows how the light was now outside of where he was but it was still with him. Finally he drives up to Netownhamilton, passing some forests on the way and place where the only light that he is exposed to is the stars that are shining down at him from the sky. This now represents how the imminent safety that he had at the public gas station was now gone and he was isolated, in these hills only lit by stars. The safety in the light is now, far way: leaving him exposed to anything “outside”. The image of the first few lines is of Colum now isolated, surrounded by silence, and open to the dangers they may be lurking.The succeeding lines are expressed through historical imagery. Along that road, a high, bare pilgrim’s trackWhere Sweeney fled before...
