Epic by Patrick Kavanagh is about a man reflecting on his life as he gets older.
Ireland’s 100 favourite poems
Patrick Kavanagh
It was voted just outside the top 30 of Ireland’s favourite poems in 1999 by readers of the Irish Times.
Epic
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting “Damn your soul!”
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel –
“Here is the march along these iron stones.”
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
