Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 02:40:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Easter, 1916


Easter, 1916
By W. B. 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 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 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. 
                                     

--- naveeg8r-AT-hushmail.com wrote:
> In light of what is happening in the Middle East , I
> thought I would share 
> an essay written by A.Camus with everyone.  Enjoy. 
> Navjot Verraich
> 
> NEITHER VICTIMS NOR EXECUTIONERS by Albert Camus
> 
> Yes, we must raise our voices. Up to this point, I
> have refrained from 
> appealing to emotion. We are being torn apart by a
> logic of history which 
> we have elaborated in every detail--a net which
> threatens to strangle us.
> It is not emotion which can cut through the web of a
> logic which has 
> gone to irrational lengths, but only reason which
> can meet logic on its 
> own ground. But I should not want to leave the
> impression... that any
> program for the future can get along without our
> powers of love and
> indignation. I am well aware that it takes a
> powerful prime mover to get
> men into motion and that it is hard to throw one's
> self into a struggle
> whose objectives are so modest and where hope has
> only a rational basis-
> -
> and hardly even that. But the problem is not how to
> carry men away; it is
> essential, on the contrary, that they not be carried
> away but rather that
> they be made to understand clearly what they are
> doing.
> 
> To save what can be saved so as to open up some kind
> of future--that is 
> the prime mover, the passion and the sacrifice that
> is required. It
> demands only that we reflect and then decide,
> clearly, whether humanity's
> lot must be made still more miserable in order to
> achieve far-off and
> shadowy ends, whether we should accept a world
> bristling with arms where
> brother kills brother; or whether, on the contrary,
> we should avoid 
> bloodshed and misery as much as possible so that we
> give a chance for
> survival to later generations better equipped than
> we are.
> 
> For my part, I am fairly sure that I have made the
> choice. And, having
> chosen, I think that I must speak out, that I must
> state that I will
> never again be one of those, whoever they be, who
> compromise with murder,
> and that I must take the consequences of such a
> decision. The thing is
> done, and that is as far as I can go at present....
> However, I want to
> make clear the spirit in which this article is
> written.
> 
> We are asked to love or to hate such and such a
> country and such and
> such a people. But some of us feel too strongly our
> common humanity to
> make such a choice. Those who really love the
> Russian people, in
> gratitude for what they have never ceased to
> be--that world leaven which
> Tolstoy and Gorky speak of--do not wish for them
> success in power politics,
> but rather want to spare them, after the ordeals of
> the past, a new and
> even more terrible bloodletting. So, too, with the
> American people, and
> with the peoples of unhappy Europe. This is the kind
> of elementary truth
> we are likely to forget amidst the furious passions
> of our time.
> 
> Yes, it is fear and silence and the spiritual
> isolation they cause that
> must be fought today. And it is sociability and the
> universal inter-
> communication of men that must be defended. Slavery,
> injustice, and lies
> destroy this intercourse and forbid this
> sociability; and so we must
> reject them. But these evils are today the very
> stuff of history, so
> that many consider them necessary evils. It is true
> that we cannot
> "escape history," since we are in it up to our
> necks. But one may propose
> to fight within history to preserve from history
> that part of man which
> is not its proper province. That is all I have to
> say here. The "point"
> of this article may be summed up as follows:
> 
> Modern nations are driven by powerful forces along
> the roads of power
> and domination. I will not say that these forces
> should be furthered
> or that they should be obstructed. They hardly need
> our help and, for
> the moment, they laugh at attempts to hinder them.
> They will, then,
> continue. But I will ask only this simple question:
> What if these 
> forces wind up in a dead end, what if that logic of
> history on which
> so many now rely turns out to be a will o' the wisp?
> What if, despite
> two or three world wars, despite the sacrifice of
> several generations 
> and a whole system of values, our
> grandchildren--supposing they survive-
> -
> find themselves no closer to a world society? It may
> well be that the
> survivors of such an experience will be too weak to
> understand their
> own sufferings. Since these forces are working
> themselves out and since
> it is inevitable that they continue to do so,there
> is no reason why
> some of us should not take on the job of keeping
> alive, through the 
> apocalyptic historical vista that stretches before
> us, a modest 
> thoughtfulness which, without pretending to solve
> everything, will
> constantly be prepared to give some human meaning to
> everyday life.
> The essential thing is that people should carefully
> weight the price 
> they must pay....
> 
> All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous
> world, we agree to reflect
> on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can
> distinguish those
> who accept the consequences of being murderers
> themselves or the 
> accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do
> so with all their
> force and being. Since this terrible dividing line
> does actually exist,
> it will be a gain if it be clearly marked. Over the
> expanse of five
> continents throughout the coming years an endless
> strugle is going to
> be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion,
> a struggle in 
> which, granted, the former has a thousand times the
> chances of success
> than that of the latter. But I have always held
> that, if he who bases his
> hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in
> the face of circum-
> stances is a coward. And henceforth, the only
> honorable course will be
> to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that
> words are more powerful
> than munitions.
> 
> 
> 
> 


====

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