"The Cure of Troy" by Seamus Heaney

The Cure of Troy by Seamus Heaney

Human beings suffer. 
They torture one another. 
They get hurt and get hard. 
No poem or play or song 
Can fully right a wrong 
Inflicted and endured. 

History says, Don’t hope 
On the side of the grave,’ 
But then, once in a lifetime 
The longed-for tidal wave 
Of justice can rise up 
And hope and history rhyme. 


So hope for a great sea- change 
On the far side of revenge. 
Believe that a further shore 
Is reachable from here. 
Believe in miracles. 
And cures and healing wells. 


Call miracle self-healing, 
The utter self revealing 
Double-take of feeling. 
If there’s fire on the mountain 
And lightening and storm 
And a god speaks from the sky 


That means someone is hearing 
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term. 
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up 
And hope and history rhyme.