Seamus Heaney - The Gutteral Muse lyrics

Late summer, and at midnight I smelt the heat of the day; At my window over the hotel car park I breathed the muddied night airs off the lake And watched a young crowd leave the discotheque. Their voices rose up thick and comforting As oily bubbles the feeding tench sent up That evening at dusk - the slimy tench Once called the ‘doctor fish' because his slime Was said to heal the wound of fish that touched it. A girl in a white dress Was being courted out among the cars: As her voice swarmed and puddled into laughs I felt like some old pike all badged with sores Wanting to swim in touch with soft-mouthed life.