#easter 1916

"Easter, 1916" by William Butler Yeats

I have met them at close of day   Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey   Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head   Or polite meaningless words,   Or have lingered awhile and said   Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done   Of a mocking tale or a gibe   To please a companion Around the fire at the club,   Being certain that they and I   But lived where motley is worn:   All changed, changed utterly:   A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent   In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers   When, young and beautiful,   She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school   And rode our wingèd horse;   This other his helper and friend   Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end,   So sensitive his nature seemed,   So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart,   Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn,   Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone   Through summer and winter seem   Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road,   The rider, the birds that range   From cloud to tumbling cloud,   Minute by minute they change;   A shadow of cloud on the stream   Changes minute by minute;   A horse-hoof slides on the brim,   And a horse plashes within it;   The long-legged moor-hens dive,   And hens to moor-cocks call;   Minute by minute they live:   The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.   O when may it suffice? That is Heaven's part, our part   To murmur name upon name,   As a mother names her child   When sleep at last has come   On limbs that had run wild.   What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death;   Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith   For all that is done and said.   We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead;   And what if excess of love   Bewildered them till they died?   I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride   And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly:   A terrible beauty is born.