We are fortunate and proud to have counted Seamus Heaney as a revered member of the Harvard family. For us, as for people around the world, he epitomized the poet as a wellspring of humane insight and artful imagination, subtle wisdom and shining grace. We will remember him with deep affection and admiration. And the inimitable villanelle that he wrote, and stirringly delivered, for Harvard’s 350th anniversary celebration a quarter-century ago will forever remain as one of the most eloquent evocations of what our university is and aspires to be, with our books open and our gates unbarred.
