Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

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.

September 25, 1916