Eden Rock & Follower

This lesson explores two poems about parent-child relationships that span time and separation. Causley imagines his dead parents waiting for him in a sunlit afterlife; Heaney recalls following his father across ploughed fields as a child, then acknowledges that the roles have reversed. Both are poems of memory, admiration, and the inevitable shift in family relationships.

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Poem 1: Eden Rock — Charles Causley (1988)

Context

Fact	Detail
Poet	Charles Causley (1917–2003)
Published	1988
Subject	The speaker imagines his dead parents at a riverside picnic
Key context	Causley's father died when Charles was seven; the poem is haunted by this early loss
Tone	Dreamlike, precise, tender

Causley was a Cornish poet known for lyrical simplicity that masks emotional depth. Eden Rock was written when Causley was in his seventies — the poem can be read as a meditation on approaching death, reunion, and the persistence of love beyond death.

Content Summary