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Poetry as Self-seeking

Seamus Heaney recalls childhood fascination with wells and pumps, describing them as places of mystery, depth, and possible danger. The poem moves from this boyhood curiosity to an adult purpose: writing poetry becomes a way to probe hidden depths, hear an echo, and discover the self. The title suggests a private source of inspiration, but the closing lines also question self-regard and the limits of that search.

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As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top. I savoured the rich crash when a bucket Plummeted down at the end of a rope. So deep you saw no reflection in it. A shallow one under a dry stone ditch Fructified like any aquarium. When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch A white face hovered over the bottom. Others had echoes, gave back your own call With a clean new music in it. And one Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection. Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime, To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.