In Seamus Heaney's poem, "Death of a Naturalist", Heaney is concerned with the transformation of growing up and the consequential loss of innocence that becomes a price for that personal growth. Heaney masterly uses many techniques in "Death of a Naturalist" to convey this theme, including rich diction, fascinating symbolism, and lavish imagery. In his poem, Seamus Heaney presents a speaker who recalls a childhood experience. This experience, an encounter with an army of frogs, takes its toll on the boy as he becomes disillusioned; he no longer sees nature as his playful ally but as a threat. When the boy leaves the frogs at the end of the poem, he is changed, and the disillusion he feels from his experience has become another step on his "metamorphosis" to adulthood.

At the start of "Death of a Naturalist", the narrator is remembering a time during his childhood in...