Terminus

By hoking in “Terminus,” Heaney lets the reader know that he is still digging decades after his original declaration in the poem “Digging” (1966). For Heaney, this dialectic word uncovers the layers of his writing more precisely: “When I hear someone say hoke, I’m returned to the very first place in myself. It’s not a standard English word and it’s not an Irish-language word either, but it’s undislodgeably there, buried in the very foundations of my own speech” (Heaney, “Something to Write Home About”). Like all colloquial terms, only people from his specific area of Northern Ireland would know this word. The word doesn’t fully exist in either of his first languages, but it’s part of his identity in how he writes and speaks. 

The final stanza of “Terminus” is all about balance. This balance is between two buckets, two sides of a scale, two sides of a river, and two sides of history. One image of balance that tips both ways is the stepping-stone.

When Heaney stands on the stone, “he is the last earl on horseback” (Line 21), engaged in a childhood game with historical importance. By playing the Earl of Tyrone, Heaney engages in “a mysterious turn, a hiatus, a frozen frame in the violent action” (Heaney, “Something to Write Home About”).