Ah God, I thought we'd have Seamus Heaney for at least a few more years. The wispy white-haired Irish laureate died in Dublin today, at the age of 74, according to various media reports, and there are no words to properly express what he contributed to poetry and language during his immense career.
He was a makaris; an archeologist of peat bogs and Latinate etymology; a singer of old songs ("Antigone," "Beowulf," from Virgil) in a thrilling modern idiom... and on and on. He was a wonder.
I'm wrong about one thing, though. There ARE very good words appropriate for this moment of loss -- his own, taken from his best-selling translation of "Beowulf":
It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.
He won plenty of glory, didn't he? I wonder if the thought ever crossed his mind, as he worked on these lines in his farmhouse years ago, that such words could apply to him and his career.
Rest in peace, old artificer.
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