Terminus

“Terminus” is a short lyric poem that shares Seamus Heaney’s sensations and childhood memories of growing up in rural County Derry in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. The theme of boundaries in the poem also references the Troubles in Northern Ireland (see Contextual Analysis), which spanned most of his adolescence and adult life. The poem’s title evokes the Roman god Terminus: the god who protects boundaries.

The poem opens with “hoking,” which is a colloquial word for digging: “When I hoked there, I would find / An acorn and a rusted bolt” (Lines 1-2). Digging—or hoking—is a constant motif in Heaney’s poetry and is the thesis statement of his collection Death is a Naturalist, where he declares: “Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests. / I’ll dig with it” (“Digging,” Lines 29-31). Instead of keeping his paternal family tradition and becoming a farmer—working, tilling, digging the land—Heaney wrote poetry. He never gave up digging, though; he uses his words to investigate ideas that lie underneath the surface of everyday thoughts.

What Heaney finds when he hokes the land are fundamental elements of nature and industry.