manuscript poem with black ink on beige paper
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) “Easter, 1916” Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature

"Easter, 1916"

Transcript below

Hear curator James Pethica read W.B. Yeats’s poem “Easter, 1916”

Go to the exhibition label to learn more

Run time three minutes

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.

End of Transcript