Stanza 1 Summary

Line 1

My father worked with a horse-plough

• Okay—we're off and plowing. "Plough," by the by, is the British spelling for "plow," which is a farming tool pulled by a tractor (or horse in this case) that cuts deep lines into the earth to prepare it for planting. 
• This is a matter-of-fact opening for a poem. The speaker's father worked with a horse plow. With a little sleuth work, we could probably guess that he was a farmer. We might also guess that, because he gets the opening line, the father is going to play an important role in this poem. 
• Notice that Heaney begins the poem in the past tense. We might be looking into the speaker's past, maybe even at a specific family memory. Let's read on to find out…

Lines 2-3

His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.

• For those of you not in the know, here's a little Farming Terminology 101: the "shafts" are the long, wooden things that the farmer holds on to and that are attached to the horse (what he steers with). And the "furrow" is the deep line in the earth that the plow is cutting as it moves along (where you'd plant seeds). 
• His shoulders, because they are hunched and straining with the effort of steering the plow, look rounded from the back like sails do when the wind is blowing full force. And he's going full force, too, using all of his strength to plow the field. 
• That's some tough work, buddy. Heaney is giving us a spot-on picture of how physically strenuous horse-drawn plowing is. The speaker's father must be one tough cookie. 
• Heaney uses a technique known as sibilance in these lines. By that, we meant the alliteration of the S sound, which makes for a smooth sounding line, so it's really inviting to the ear. Just like this expert farmer smoothly guides the plow through the field, there's no halting or herky-jerky sound here that makes you want to stop. The sibilance makes us want to glide right on to the next line. (Check out "Form and Meter" for more on Heaney's use of sound.)

Line 4

The horse strained at his clicking tongue. 

• Here we get further evidence that the father knows what's up when it comes to plowing—the horse listens to his commands, and works hard ("strained") for him. He's a total bawse. 
• It's also more proof that plowing is hard work. Even the horse is straining with the effort. 
• The speaker seems to respect his father and is proud of him for being such a strong, hard-worker. Go, Dad.
• We also notice some rhyme going on in this first stanza. Notice that line 4 ends with a rhyme for line 2 ("tongue" with "strung"). Lines 1 and 3 are a bit trickier. "Plough" and "furrow" sort of rhyme (depending on your accent). At the least, we can say that these two words have a slant rhyme. For more on good stuff like rhyme, check out "Form and Meter."