Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)

Péter Dolmányos: An Outline of the Relationship Between Romanticism and Contemporary Irish Poetry

ROMANTICISM AND CON TEMPORARY IRISH POETRY 23 Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe Being played by water, you shake it again lightly And diminuendo runs through all its scales Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves, Then subde little wets off grass and daises; Then glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air. Upend the stick again. What happens next Is undiminished for having happened once, Twice, ten, a thousand times before. Who cares if all the music that transpires Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus? You are like a rich man entering heaven Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again.

2" The poem suggests the possibility of looking at common things with a fresh eye, of savouring the experience regardless of its triviality, regardless of its having happened before on several times. On another level the poem may be read as an apology for contemporary poetry as well: for repeating what has been said before, for making a music which is perhaps not as smooth as it could be and also for not being able to get away from the heritage of earlier traditions

—traditions such as Romanticism. 2

0 Heaney, S. The Spirit Tevei London: Faber, 1996, p. 1