Michael Robartes and the Dancer/Easter, 1916
EASTER, 1916.I have met them at close of dayComing with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among greyEighteenth-century houses.I have passed with a nod of the headOr polite meaningless words,Or have lingered awhile and saidPolite meaningless words,And thought before I had doneOf a mocking tale or a gibeTo please a companionAround the fire at the club,Being certain that they and IBut lived where motley is worn:All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.
That woman’s days were spentIn ignorant good will,Her nights in argumentUntil her voice grew shrill.What voice more sweet than hersWhen young and beautiful,She rode to harriers?This man had kept a schoolAnd 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 dreamedA drunken, vain-glorious lout.He had done most bitter wrongTo some who are near my heart,Yet I number him in the song;He, too, has resigned his partIn the casual comedy;He, too, has been changed in his turn,Transformed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose aloneThrough summer and winter seemEnchanted to a stoneTo trouble the living stream.The horse that comes from the road,The rider, the birds that rangeFrom cloud to tumbling cloud,Minute by minute change;A shadow of cloud on the streamChanges minute by minute;A horse-hoof slides on the brim,And a horse plashes within itWhere 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 sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.O when may it suffice?That is heaven’s part, our partTo murmur name upon name,As a mother names her childWhen sleep at last has comeOn 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 faithFor all that is done and said.We know their dream; enoughTo know they dreamed and are dead.And what if excess of loveBewildered them till they died?I write it out in a verse—MacDonagh and MacBrideAnd Connolly and PearseNow and in time to be,Wherever green is worn,Are changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.
September 25th, 1916.