{ "id": "w-b-yeats/easter-1916", "title": "Easter, 1916", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "W. B. Yeats", "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats", "language": "en", "book": "Michael Robartes and the Dancer", "book_slug": "michael-robartes-and-the-dancer", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 3, "container": "Michael Robartes and the Dancer", "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1920, "venue": "Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1920)", "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/robertes00wby" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/w-b-yeats_poetry", "file": "poetry.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49608", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32491", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36865", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49615", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32233", "https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.92252", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001776372", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/fE8wAQAAMAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TWUEAAAAQAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TFAwAQAAMAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Irish_Monthly/EMoaAAAAYAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/gop-1889", "https://archive.org/details/poemsandballads00unkngoog", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000551354", "https://archive.org/details/fairytalesirish00yeatrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008958226", "https://archive.org/details/countesskathleen00yeat", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008883383", "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofw01yeat", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin01yeat", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin02yeatuoft", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin00yeatuoft", "https://archive.org/details/responsibilities00yeatiala", "https://books.google.com/books?id=jDI3AAAAIAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/robertes00wby/robertes00wby", "https://archive.org/details/poemsyeatrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001020237" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-21" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 80, "n_stanzas": 4, "n_parts": 0, "longest_line_chars": 38, "max_indent": 0 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "I have met them at close of day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Coming with vivid faces", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From counter or desk among grey", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Eighteenth-century houses.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I have passed with a nod of the head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or polite meaningless words,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or have lingered awhile and said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Polite meaningless words,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thought before I had done", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of a mocking tale or a gibe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To please a companion", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Around the fire at the club,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Being certain that they and I", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But lived where motley is worn:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All changed, changed utterly:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A terrible beauty is born.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That woman’s days were spent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In ignorant good will,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her nights in argument", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until her voice grew shrill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What voice more sweet than hers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When young and beautiful,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She rode to harriers?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This man had kept a school", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rode our winged horse;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This other his helper and friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was coming into his force;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He might have won fame in the end,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So sensitive his nature seemed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So daring and sweet his thought.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This other man I had dreamed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A drunken, vain-glorious lout.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He had done most bitter wrong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To some who are near my heart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet I number him in the song;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He, too, has resigned his part", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the casual comedy;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He, too, has been changed in his turn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Transformed utterly:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A terrible beauty is born.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Hearts with one purpose alone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through summer and winter seem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Enchanted to a stone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To trouble the living stream.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The horse that comes from the road,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rider, the birds that range", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From cloud to tumbling cloud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Minute by minute they change;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A shadow of cloud on the stream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Changes minute by minute;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A horse-hoof slides on the brim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And a horse plashes within it", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where long-legged moor-hens dive,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hens to moor-cocks call.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Minute by minute they live:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stone’s in the midst of all.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Too long a sacrifice", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Can make a stone of the heart.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O when may it suffice?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That is heaven’s part, our part", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To murmur name upon name,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As a mother names her child", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When sleep at last has come", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On limbs that had run wild.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What is it but nightfall?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No, no, not night but death;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was it needless death after all?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For England may keep faith", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For all that is done and said.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We know their dream; enough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To know they dreamed and are dead;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what if excess of love", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bewildered them till they died?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I write it out in a verse⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "MacDonagh and MacBride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Connolly and Pearse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now and in time to be,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherever green is worn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are changed, changed utterly:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A terrible beauty is born.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }