How does the poet convey the sadness of death in 'Mid-Term Break'

... How does the poet convey the sadness of death in Mid-Term Break? The concepts of death and grief are often interlinked. This is demonstrated in Seamus Heaney's poem, 'Mid-Term Break', where he conveys the sadness of death after his own brother, Christopher, dies. Heaney uses various language techniques, sound devices, symbolizations and contrasts to achieve this sense of sorrow. In the first stanza, Heaney's clever use of the phrase "counting bells knelling classes to a close" illustrates the similarity of school bells to funeral bells. The use of assonance and alliteration in this phrase emphasizes the funereal sounds of the bells. Also, the hard consonant sounds in "counting", "classes, and "close" foreshadow some form of cruel finality, providing a feeling of melancholy, as well as apprehension. After such subtleties, we can finally see blatant evidence to the presence of death. In the second stanza, when Heaney arrives home, he sees his "father

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