This is an incredibly sad poem. The mood is set almost immediately in the second line: Counting bells knelling classes to a close. Notice how Heaney uses assonance and alliteration to emphasise the funereal sound of the bells and the feeling of time dragging. The sentence begins with the 'morning' in line one but it is two o'clock in line three showing that hours have passed in waiting. The second sentence begins with the image of Heaney's father 'crying'. Having come across Heaney's father in poems such as Follower in which he appears to be a strong man of few words, this contrary picture evokes powerful emotion in the reader.

Heaney skilfully takes the reader with him as he enters the house through the porch - we meet his father, 'Big Jim Evans', the baby in its pram, the old men congregated in the room and finally Heaney's mother coughing out 'angry tearless sighs'. Lines 14-15 again show Heaney using assonance, this time in his repetition of the short 'a' - 'At', 'ambulance', 'arrived', 'stanched', 'and', 'bandaged' - emphasising the stopping short of blood an

The language in the poem is peppered with dialect used in northern Ireland an example which is in the poem is ''sorry for your trouble'' a expression which is used over here at wakes another interesting word Heaney has used in the poem is '' knelling'' used to describe a bell ringing for classes which is normally used in the context of tolling to announce death.

On his arrival he meets his father who is devastated crying openly in the porch. There where many friends and neighbours there to expressing how bad they feel because of the death of his brother. Heany was also embarrassed by the adult way he was treated by older men who shook his hand this was not normal for this to happen to children of his age. His mother was also devastated.

ement of shock for the reader reading it for the first time also, when they discover who has died and that he was a mere four years old.

The main theme in the poem is one of sorrow and devastation which shows how distraught his family is over the death of Christopher. It also shows the difference between adult and childhood life. This is shown when Heany is treated more like a adult when he was at the wake it says in the poem that he was in embarrassed by old men standing up to shake his hand.

Some common words found in the essay are:
College Derry, Jim Evans', Notice Heaney, Term Break, death christopher, mid term break, mid term, six weeks, sentence begins, heaney's father, farm called, term break,
Approximate Word count = 842
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)