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| A TERRIBLE BEAUTY IS BORN..... |
EASTER 1916
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I
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.
II
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 winged 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, vain-glorious 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.
III
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 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
Where long-legged moor-hens dive
And hens to moor-cocks call.
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
IV
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.
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.
II
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 winged 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, vain-glorious 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.
III
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 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
Where long-legged moor-hens dive
And hens to moor-cocks call.
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
IV
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.
The Atlantic, The
Atlantic.com, William Butler Yeats, Easter 1916
'Easter, 1916' was
published for the first time in the New Statesman on 23 October 1920.
Richard Wilbur reads "Easter 1916" in realplayer realaudio format. Nice.
Title page of Easter 1916 by William Butler Yeats
Memorial to the Fallen of Easter 1916
 |
| First Page of Easter 1916 in Manuscript |
 |
| Map of the Uprising of Easter 1916 |
 |
| Stanzas III & IV of Easter 1916 in print. |
MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse
and all the others who gave their lives for FREEDOM
on Easter 1916 are Memorialized Here.
Exhibition on the 1916 uprising, comprehensive and authoritative.
You can see Yeats' original manuscript here, dated as of September 25, 1916, a Yeats virtual museum.
- High upon the gallows tree swung the noble-hearted three.
- By the vengeful tyrant stricken in their bloom;
- But they met him face to face, with the courage of their race,
- And they went with souls undaunted to their doom.
GOD SAVE IRELAND
- "God save Ireland!" said the heroes;
- "God save Ireland" said they all.
- Whether on the scaffold high
- Or the battlefield we die,
- Oh, what matter when for Erin dear we fall!1
- Girt around with cruel foes, still their courage proudly rose,
- For they thought of hearts that loved them far and near;
- Of the millions true and brave o'er the ocean's swelling wave,
- And the friends in holy Ireland ever dear.
- "God save Ireland!" said the heroes;
- "God save Ireland" said they all.
- Whether on the scaffold high
- Or the battlefield we die,
- Oh, what matter when for Erin dear we fall!
- Climbed they up the rugged stair, rang their voices out in prayer,
- Then with England's fatal cord around them cast,
- Close beside the gallows tree kissed like brothers lovingly,
- True to home and faith and freedom to the last.
- "God save Ireland!" said the heroes;
- "God save Ireland" said they all.
- Whether on the scaffold high
- Or the battlefield we die,
- Oh, what matter when for Erin dear we fall!
- Never till the latest day shall the memory pass away,
- Of the gallant lives thus given for our land;
- But on the cause must go, amidst joy and weal and woe,
- Till we make our Isle a nation free and grand.
- "God save Ireland!" said the heroes;
- "God save Ireland" said they all.
- Whether on the scaffold high
- Or the battlefield we die,
- Oh, what matter when for Erin dear we fall!
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