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.