Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

Background details and bibliographic information

Easter, 1916

Author: William Butler Yeats

File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Rebecca Daly

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork

1. First draft.

Extent of text: 1123 words

Publication

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

(2014)

Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: E910001-057

Availability [RESTRICTED]

The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.

Notes

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).

Sources

    Literature (a small selection)
  1. 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).
  2. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.]
  3. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957).
  4. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
  5. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
  6. George Mayhew, 'A Corrected Typescript of Yeats's "Easter 1916"', Huntington Library Quarterly 27/1 (November 1963) 53–71.
  7. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
  8. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
  9. Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (Oxford/New York 2007).
  10. 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
  1. William Butler Yeats Easter, 1916 in , Ed. William Butler Yeats Easter, 1916 (A Poem). Privately printed by Clement Shorter, London, (1916) pages 5pp

Encoding

Project Description

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

Sampling Declaration

The whole poem.

Editorial Declaration

Correction

The text has been proof-read twice.

Normalization

The electronic text represents the edited text.

Hyphenation

The editorial practice of the hard-copy editor has been retained.

Segmentation

div0= the individual poem, stanzas are marked lg.

Interpretation

Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.

Profile Description

Created: (25 September 1916)

Use of language

Language: [EN] The poem is in English.

Revision History

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-057

Easter, 1916: Author: William Butler Yeats

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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?
  5. 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.

    6. September 25, 1916