]> Easter, 1916 An electronic edition William Butler Yeats Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber Rebecca Daly School of History, University College, Cork First draft. 1123 CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
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 First published in 1916, in "an edition of 25 copies 'privately printed by Clement Shorter for distribution among his friends', and subsequently in the New Statesman (23 October 1920)" (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 225) and in the Dial for Nov. 1920 (Mayhew, p. 53). Literature (a small selection) W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938). Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.] Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957). W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961). W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962). George Mayhew, 'A Corrected Typescript of Yeats's "Easter 1916"', Huntington Library Quarterly 27/1 (November 1963) 53–71. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964). A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984). Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (Oxford/New York 2007). A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html The edition used in the digital edition William Butler Yeats Easter, 1916 William Butler Yeats Easter, 1916 (A Poem) Privately printed by Clement Shorter London 1916 5pp

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 25 September 1916 The poem is in English. literary poetry W. B. Yeats 20c Easter Rising 1916 2014-02-13 Beatrix Färber ed. File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created. 2014-02-12 Beatrix Färber ed. Markup checked, TEI header created with bibliographical detail. 2014-02-10 Rebecca Daly ed. Structural markup applied according to CELT practice. 1996 Students at the CELT Project, UCC ed. First proofing. 1996 Donnchadh Ó Corráin data capture Text captured Easter, 1916 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 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, 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. September 25, 1916