Seamus Heaney. Illustrations by Barrie Cooke. 
 
Farrar Straus Giroux: 1984. Hardcover in a slip case. First American edition, limited to 350. 85 pages. Near fine. Signed. 
 
Heaney's bag of tricks - poetry, verse, dialogue - and Cooke's black and white illustrations retell the medieval Irish fable of Sweeney, driven to madness and a life of wandering by the curse of St. Ronan after the battle of Moira. 
 
"Get him, take him live or dead, 
every man fall to. 
Draw and quarter, pike 
and spit him, none will blame you. 
 
Still the horsemen followed 
across the north of Down,
My back escaping nimbly
from every javelin thrown."