LibGuides: Teaching topic: The 1916 Rising: Poems

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 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.

Notes on Easter 1916 by W. B. Yeats
Teacher's tips, writing and discussion guides on the poem.
Source for poem

Lament for the poets: 1916 by Francis Ledwidge

I heard the Poor Old Woman say:
“At break of day the fowler came,
And took my blackbirds from their songs
Who loved me well thro’ shame and blame.

“No more from lovely distances
Their songs shall bless me, mile by mile,
Nor to white Ashbourne call me down
To wear my crown another while.

“With bended flowers the angels mark
For the skylark the place they lie;
From there its little family
Shall dip their wings first in the sky.

“And when the first surprise of flight
Sweet songs excite, from the far dawn
Shall there come blackbirds loud with love,
Sweet echoes of the singers gone.

“But in the lovely hush of eve,
Weeping I grieve the silent bills,”
I heard the Poor Old Woman say
In Derry of the little hills.

Notes on Lament for the poets: 1916 by Carol Rumens
In: The Guardian newspaper 6th April 2009

Lament for Thomas MacDonagh by Francis Ledwidge

He shall not hear the bittern cry
In the wild sky where he is lain
Nor voices of the sweeter birds
Above the wailing of the rain.

Nor shall he know when loud March blows
Thro' slanting snows her fanfare shrill
Blowing to flame the golden cup
Of many an upset daffodil.

And when the dark cow leaves the moor
And pastures poor with greedy weeds
Perhaps he'll hear her low at morn
Lifting her horn in pleasant meads.

Source

O'Connell Street by Francis Ledwidge

Noble failure is not vain
But hath a victory of its own
A bright delectance from the slain
Is down the generations thrown.
And, more than Beauty understands
Has made her lovelier here, it seems;
I see white ships that crowd her strands,
For mine are all the dead men’s dreams.

Source

The Rebel by Patrick Pearse

Other titles of interest

The 1916 Poets by Desmond Ryan (Editor)
Selections from the work of Padraic H. Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph M. Plunkett -signers of the Irish Republican Proclamation who were executed because of their participation in the Rising.
The crime against Europe: the writings and poetry of Roger Casement by Roger Casement
A series of articles that predict WW1, written in 1913-1914 by the Irish Nationalist Roger Casement who was executed for his involvement in the Rising.
Poems of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood by Pearse, Padraic, Colum, Padraic; Plunkett, Joseph Mary; MacDonagh, Thomas; Casement, Roger, Sir; O'Brien, Edward Joseph Harrington
Publication Date: 1916
This item is held in our Special Padraic Colum Collection.
Francis Ledwidge, a Life of the Poet by Alice Curtayne
Detailing the remarkable life of a gifted Irish poet, this classic biography offers an insight into the life and politics of Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century.
At Home in the Revolution by Lucy McDiarmid; John Doe (Editor)
Eye-witness narratives - diaries, memoirs, letters, autobiographies and official witness statements - from the women who stayed at home during the Easter Rising of 1916.

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