Tony Harrison: Cremation Eclogue

Relationship to Classical text Ironic use of pastoral allusion in context of Foot and Mouth disease and burning of cattle corpses in the North East of England and crash of train: ‘my own slack-blackened Hipocrene’ ‘Cremation Eclogue floats towards the fire, / where choking piles of stiff legged Friesians blaze / their piebald blending poem into place.

Note First collected in Under the Clock, London: Penguin, 2005.