Seamus Heaney walks into eternity

Seamus Heaney, who emerged as one of the world's best-known poets and also won the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature, recently died at the age of 74 after a short illness. Born in Northern Ireland Heaney was one of the world's foremost poets writing in English whose works include his 1966 debut "Death of a Naturalist", "The Spirit Level" and "District and Circle". The poet heaved his last in a Dublin hospital on Friday morning.

"The poet and Nobel Laureate died in hospital in Dublin this morning after a short illness," said a statement on behalf of the Heaney family released by his publishers Faber and Faber.

Heaney won acclaim from critics while producing best-sellers. Once it took him three hours to walk down Dublin's main street as autograph hunters pursued him.

Born in 1939, Heaney is best known for his poems that nostalgically recall the sights and smells of a country childhood, revelling in the recurring images of Irish potato diggers and peat bog cutters.

A tousle-haired figure with a shy and subtle manner, Heaney had a dislike for media hype and publishers' publicity caravans. He continued to have aversion for media even as he became one of Ireland's most famous figures.

Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in a cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.
   

from "Mid-term break",
Death of a Naturalist (1966)