Bogland by Seamus Heaney

Bogland

We have no prairies 

To slice a big sun at evening-- 

Everywhere the eye concedes to 

Encrouching horizon, 

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye 

Of a tarn. Our unfenced country 

Is bog that keeps crusting 

Between the sights of the sun. 

They've taken the skeleton 

Of the Great Irish Elk 

Out of the peat, set it up 

An astounding crate full of air. 

Butter sunk under 

More than a hundred years 

Was recovered salty and white. 

The ground itself is kind, black butter 

Melting and opening underfoot, 

Missing its last definition 

By millions of years. 

They'll never dig coal here, 

Only the waterlogged trunks 

Of great firs, soft as pulp. 

Our pioneers keep striking 

Inwards and downwards, 

Every layer they strip 

Seems camped on before. 

The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. 

The wet centre is bottomless.