Seamus Heaney’s “North” is about the way that the speaker’s body experiences place. Though the poem shows clear indications that history should still be thought of as a linear progression through time, the speaker’s experience of time is porous and unstable. In some lines, such as when the “longship” speaks through the speaker (Line 20), the past seems to co-exist with the speaker’s present. In other lines, such as when the speaker describes the “long swords rusting” (Line 12)—showing the passage of time as the metal oxidizes—there is a clear delineation between the two.

In the poem, Heaney is pointing towards the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship that people have with their cultural history. A person’s cultural history can simultaneously be partially lived and partially forgotten as their mind shifts to accommodate novel ideas, perspectives, and ways of living. “North” argues that the challenge is to find a way to remember and embody one’s cultural heritage without also embodying the parts of that heritage that are incompatible with contemporary life. In the poem, the speaker tries to navigate this challenge through their engagement with place and history, and their embodiment of those two things.

The poem’s first images establish that landscape is mutable and open to change through mundane physical forces—including human intervention.