Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats

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. 

            The poem Easter 1916 was written in September 1916 as a response to the Irish Nationalists’ fail in their uprising to the British government, which occurred during the week of Easter Sunday in 1916.  Many of the Irish rebels were defeated, and in May of 1916, the Irish leaders, who barricaded the post office buildings were executed by the British army.  The four men named in the poem were executed after this rebellion, in addition to the hundreds killed during the uprising.  The poem is written with a traditional ABAB rhyme scheme, and it is broken into four 24-line stanzas.

            The poem opens with the speaker’s description of his encounters with the rebels, pre-rebellion.  The speaker’s tone indicates that his previous encounters with the rebels, before they were so, were very casual.  His encounters with them consisted often of him passing “with a nod of the head/Or polite meaningless words.”(5-6) He recalls seeing them return home from work, “from counter or desk.”(3) The repetition of the words “polite meaningless words” shows that the speaker’s exchanges with those killed in the rebellion were quite mundane, and rather unimportant to him.

            Throughout the second stanza, the speaker seems to be trying to say that appearances are often deceptive in nature.  He seems to be saying that although the woman in the second stanza appears to be superficial and living her life in “ignorant good will,”(18) her nights were spent “in argument/Until her voice grew shrill.”(19-20) This suggests that the female Irish rebel being discussed in the first half of the second stanza was simply putting on a show of doing right by the British government, though her evenings were filled with her protestations and opinions.

            The third stanza is very metaphorical, discussing a stone in a stream.  In the first line, the speaker states, “Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.”(41-44) The stone is clearly a symbol, and therefore this stanza can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways.  The way in which I interpreted it was that one’s heart only has one purpose, whether it is to beat in order for an organism to live, or to love another forever, then it will turn to stone, and not be able to function in any other way.  This will cause problems in “the living stream,” as something which can only have one function seems more of a burden than a joy or gift.  Life will continue to happen while this mono-functioning heart is “in the midst of it all.”  The Irish rebels’ sole purpose, in their own eyes, was to rebel against the British government. 

            In the fourth stanza, the speaker is focusing on the sacrifice of men, whether necessary or not.  In the very first two lines, the speaker states that “Too long a sacrifice/Can make a stone of the heart.” This statement is in reference to the sacrifice and suffering of the Irish, and how the prolonged sacrifice hardens the heart.