| I | |
| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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: | 15 |
| A terrible beauty is born. | |
| |
| II | |
| |
| That woman's days were spent | |
| In ignorant good will, | |
| Her nights in argument | |
| Until her voice grew shrill. | 20 |
| 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. | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| This other man I had dreamed | |
| A drunken, vain-glorious lout. | |
| He had done most bitter wrong | |
| To some who are near my heart, | |
| Yet I number him in the song; | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
| III | |
| |
| 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, | 45 |
| The rider, the birds that range | |
| From cloud to tumbling cloud, | |
| Minute by minute change. | |
| A shadow of cloud on the stream | |
| Changes minute by minute; | 50 |
| A horse-hoof slides on the brim; | |
| And a horse plashes within it | |
| Where long-legged moor-hens dive | |
| And hens to moor-cocks call. | |
| Minute by minute they live: | 55 |
| The stone's in the midst of all. | |
| |
| IV | |
| |
| Too long a sacrifice | |
| Can make a stone of the heart. | |
| O when may it suffice? | |
| That is heaven's part, our part | 60 |
| 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? | 65 |
| 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 | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| And Connolly and Pearse | |
| Now and in time to be, | |
| Wherever green is worn, | |
| Are changed, changed utterly: | |
| A terrible beauty is born. | 80 |