EASTER 1916 - WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Easter 1916 – W B Yeats (1865- 1939)

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 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 I 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.

Glossary:

them:                rebellious people

linger:              to stay for a time esp because one does no want to leave

gibe:                scuff remarking insulting/cruel jokes

polite meaningless words: Jokes and pleasantries such as exchanges with friends and comrades

motely:            the partly colored dress of a jester

that woman:     the woman was countess Markiewiez a daughter of the well-known Irish family

this man:          Patrick Pearce (1879-1940) was scholar, poet, barrister and educationalist

harrier:            cross-country runner 2. a type small dog used for hunting hares/a type of small hawk

this other man: Major John McBride, husband of Maud Gonne. John had fought against England in the Boer war.

a drunken, vainglorious lout: Yeats a deep and intelligible contempt for McBride – who was ‘a loafer’. He had stolen Maud Gonne’s affections

vainglorious:   too proud of one’s own abilities and achievements

lout:                 a man who behaves in a rude and aggressive way.

bitter wrong:    McBride had given up Maud Gonne after a brief, unhappy and troubled two years.

moor-hen:        a small black bird with a short reddish-yellow beak that lives on or near water.

suffice:             to be enough for sb

the stone’s … heart: the stone refers to ‘unchanging’ and the river refers to ‘changing’. The changing is the principle of life.

England ….said: It refers to Home Rule Bill that was passed in parliament in 1913

Connolly:         James Connolly was a great Irish leader who was also given death punishment.

Summaries:

William Butler Yeats is one of the major poets of the 20^th century. He has a multifaceted personality with varied interests. His contributions include poetry, dramas, essays on literary criticism and an autobiography. He was also known as mystic poet. The present poem 'Easter 1916' deals with an historical event of Irish Freedom Struggle. All the peasants of Ireland launched a movement of protest against the British rule exactly on the Easter Day (resurrection day of Lord Jesus Christ) in the year 1916. The freedom struggle was a long drawn battle of sacrifices. The sacrifice of the patriots is an awakening to the people of Ireland.

'Easter 1916' is partly biographical and partly historical. The poet says that he met the rebellious people at the close of the day. They were all belonging from various walks of life deemed to sacrifice for the sake of national interest. ‘A terrible beauty is born'; the refrain of the poem helps the reader to imagine the change that occurred in his country. It was the result of the chain events of sacrifices, struggles, sufferings of men and women who dreamed for their free country from British Rule.

People of all walks of life participated in this protest indicates how the movement had taken itself into a mass movement, a saga of sacrifice, struggle and suffering. The poet takes some such examples to build up his theme of transformation. There was resistance within the society although the change is the rule of the nature.  The birth of the terrible beauty presupposes innumerable instances of untold miseries and sufferings of the patriots who loved their free country.

The Lady Officer who put to death by the British Government, the poet's friend Patric Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, John MacBride and lots of other patriots were suffered greatly in the course of the freedom struggle. Many people strove hard to awaken their countrymen and fill in them a sense of pride and a craving for independence and freedom.

Long series of sacrifices brought about a change in the outlook and the mood of the people of Ireland. The revolution assumed momentum. The British parliament was forced to pass bill of Home Rule. The poet asserts that the sacrifices of the patriots would never go vain. They would be remembered for their precious services to the country. The poet's acknowledgment would also immortalize those great men and women who fought for the noble cause of freedom. By this poem, 'Easter 1916' the poet desires to immortalize all those great souls who sacrifice their lives for the sake of their country.

(or)

The poem ‘Easter 1916’ begins by paying tribute to the Irish people for leaving behind their previously mundane, trivial lives to dedicate themselves to the fight for independence. In lines which become a refrain, Yeats proclaims. “All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

The second stanza singles out individual martyrs, killed or imprisoned for the activities, among them his childhood friend Countess Markiewicz and Major John MacBride, the husband of Maud Gonne, the woman, Yeats had loved and unrequited. Although he had considered MacBride merely “a drunken, vainglorious lout”, Yeats acknowledges that he too has been ennobled by his heroism.

Stanza 3 notes paradoxically that these martyrs are all change in that they have become unchanging their hearts, united by one purpose, have become unchanging as stone, is disturbing contrast to the living stream of ordinary human life. In a characteristic shift of mood, Yeats uses the stone metaphor to warn of the danger of fanaticism: “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.”

The final stanza raises but quickly abandons essentially unanswerable questions about the duration and value of the Irish struggle and the trustworthiness of England’s promise of independence. Instead Yeats confines himself to the more modest task of paying tribute to the fallen patriots by naming them with the tenderness of a mother naming her child. While acknowledging the awful finality of death, Yeats proclaims the meaningfulness of their enterprise, in which they doffed the “motley” of their former clownish days to don green in a life both terrible and beautiful in its purpose.

With rare compression, Yeats not only succeeds in expressing his ambivalence about patriotism in general and about the Irish cause in particular, but he also allows the reader to follow sympathetically the shifts of thought and feeling in the troubled mind of a poet who is both critical and compassionate.

(or)

W.B. Yeats’ poem ‘Easter 1916’ deals with an occasion of peasant uprise in the course of Ireland independence movement called Eater rising 1916. Irish militant nationalists proclaimed ‘Irish Republic’ defying the British Rule openly. This heroic revolt met with brutal repression and effectively ended up on 29^th April, with the execution of a large number of Irish nationalists. The socio-political event is treated in this poem symbolically. The refrain ‘terrible beauty is born’ implies that bloody rebellion outbreak on the day of Easter celebrations.  He describes this event, men and women who participated in it with disguised names. Yeats knew them personally who sacrificed themselves for the great cause of independence to the country. Their sacrifice is as permanent as the rock in the midst of clouds in the sky, horse hoofs of a rider, moor-hens, moor-cocks and the course the river. They all are subjected to change minute by minute but the rock.

The words ‘changed, changed utterly’ emphatically used implies the change in life. The change is principle of life. Consequently, the terrible beauty is born. The beauty of freedom of a nation is terrible beauty because of the bloodshed and sacrifice of the freedom-fighters who whole heartedly dedicate themselves. The poem is full of imagery and also the amazing aspect of sound. The sound and the sense together yield the total meaning of the poem.  The poem documents the reaction of the poet to the brutality of English Government.  

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