Poetry: The Underground - Seamus Heaney

[Shorty]

Has anyone read The Underground by Seamus Heaney? I am suppose to share some thoughts about it in class regarding literary devices, message, structure, etc...

I'm having slight trouble understanding the poem itself. I think it refers to some sort of transportation system but that is a metaphor for love.

Here is the poem.

THE UNDERGROUND

-Seamus Heaney

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,

You in your going-away coat speeding ahead

And me, me then like a fleet god gaining

Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson

As the coat flapped wild and button after button

Sprang off and fell in a trail

Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,

Our echoes die in that corridor and now

I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones

Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station

After the trains have gone, the wet track

Bared and tensed as I am, all attention

For your step following and damned if I look back.

Thanks for your help.

[rue saint-denis]

I didn't take the time to analyse it, but here are my two cents.

I don't think it's about a transportation system. I read it and got a negative feeling, if it's about love, his love left. They are not in a happy accordance, never in sync. She's a fleeting thing. I would pay attention to the nature references. I could be wrong, so don't take my word for it.

[Shorty]

Well, I presented my share of it somewhat on the lines of what you said and I think I did pretty well.