History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

These lines come from Seamus Heaney’s poem “The Cure at Troy” (1990), a version of Sophocles’ tragedy “Philoctetes” written for the Field Day Theatre Company. Heaney composed it amid the late–Cold War period and, more immediately, the long shadow of the Northern Ireland Troubles, when political stalemate and cyclical violence often made change seem impossible. The passage is spoken by the Chorus and is frequently quoted in connection with moments of political breakthrough—especially the Northern Irish peace process—because it frames justice as rare but historically possible, arriving unexpectedly after long periods of despair.

Heaney sets a bleak, “realist” voice—“History says, Don’t hope”—against a sudden counter-possibility: that justice can surge like a tidal wave and alter what seemed fixed. The phrase “once in a lifetime” stresses how exceptional such turning points are, yet it insists they do occur. “Hope and history rhyme” is both musical and philosophical: it imagines a moment when moral aspiration (hope) and the record of human events (history) briefly align, making the world feel coherent and reparable. The lines thus balance hard-earned skepticism with a disciplined, political kind of hope.

“History says, Don’t hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme.”