territorial Partition between the North and South of Ireland. The line
in the grass is evocative of a severed landscape wounded by politics
and ideological lines existing in the minds of individuals. The poem is
a precursor to some of the issues both confronted and avoided in
Walking a Line as it demonstrates an interest in ideological, territorial
and artistic lines that are introduced in the later poetry:
Shadow in the mind,
this is its territory;
a sweep of broken land
between two guarded towns.^53Stanza one describes the borderline of Partition, and this is
associated with an in-between realm and a shadowy place. Although
at points of the border there is no visible Partition, it is still felt and it
is known as an ideological and unconscious line that exists for people
in Ireland. In the poem it is a place that is paradoxically unplaceable
or out of place as a no manís land existing between territories. The
Partition is conveyed as ëbroken groundí which is snapped in half,
fragmented and interrupted. The imagery of Partition is complemented
by short lines of roughly three feet with the effect that many of the six
feet statements are severed or broken in half. The landscape affects the
poetic voice which is clipped, precise and as non-committal as the in-
between neutrality of the border-town that is on neither one side nor
the other.^54
Stanza two testifies to how nothing is happening here: the tank
engine is rusting and the ëlong grassí has not been cut. Stanza three
notes how this ëcould be anytimeí in history since the landscape is
ëfixedí, time is interrupted and stands still. The ëfixedí images of the
poem suggest that the scene is like a painting and the poem becomes a
portrait representing a borderland or in-between state. The place in the
poem is presented in terms of a historical stasis. At a historical level,
the Boundary Commission was not meant to be permanent but the
53 ëLine on the Grassí, Strange Museum (1980), from Selected Poems 1972ñ1980
(London: Faber, 1993), p.29.
54 In 1982, Paulin recorded a reading and discussion of ëLine in the Grassí for
Readings (London: Faber 1994) where he identifies the place of the poem as the
border town of Strabane.