[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n I have met them at close of day That woman’s[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0days were spent Hearts with one purpose alone Too long a sacrifice \u2014<\/b>\u00a01921<\/p>\n
\nComing with vivid faces
\nFrom counter or desk among grey
\nEighteenth-century houses.
\nI have passed with a nod of the head
\nOr polite meaningless words,
\nOr have lingered awhile and said
\nPolite meaningless words,
\nAnd thought before I had done
\nOf a mocking tale or a gibe
\nTo please a companion
\nAround the fire at the club,
\nBeing certain that they and I
\nBut lived where motley[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0is worn:
\nAll changed, changed utterly:
\nA terrible beauty is born.<\/p>\n
\nIn ignorant good-will,
\nHer nights in argument
\nUntil her voice grew shrill.
\nWhat voice more sweet than hers
\nWhen, young and beautiful,
\nShe rode to harriers?
\nThis man[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0had kept a school
\nAnd rode our winged horse[5]<\/sup><\/a>;
\nThis other his helper and friend[6]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWas coming into his force;
\nHe might have won fame in the end,
\nSo sensitive his nature seemed,
\nSo daring and sweet his thought.
\nThis other man I had dreamed
\nA drunken, vainglorious lout[7]<\/sup><\/a>.
\nHe had done most bitter wrong
\nTo some who are near my heart,
\nYet I number him in the song;
\nHe, too, has resigned his part
\nIn the casual comedy;
\nHe, too, has been changed in his turn,
\nTransformed utterly:
\nA terrible beauty is born.<\/p>\n
\nThrough summer and winter seem
\nEnchanted to a stone
\nTo trouble the living stream.
\nThe horse that comes from the road.
\nThe rider, the birds that range
\nFrom cloud to tumbling cloud,
\nMinute by minute they change;
\nA shadow of cloud on the stream
\nChanges minute by minute;
\nA horse-hoof slides on the brim,
\nAnd a horse plashes within it;
\nThe long-legged moor-hens dive,
\nAnd hens to moor-cocks call;
\nMinute by minute they live:
\nThe stone’s in the midst of all.<\/p>\n
\nCan make a stone of the heart.
\nO when may it suffice?
\nThat is Heaven’s part, our part
\nTo murmur name upon name,
\nAs a mother names her child
\nWhen sleep at last has come
\nOn limbs that had run wild.
\nWhat is it but nightfall?
\nNo, no, not night but death;
\nWas it needless death after all?
\nFor England may keep faith[8]<\/sup><\/a>
\nFor all that is done and said.
\nWe know their dream; enough
\nTo know they dreamed and are dead;
\nAnd what if excess of love
\nBewildered them till they died?
\nI write it out in a verse \u2014
\nMacDonagh and MacBride
\nAnd Connolly[9]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0and Pearse
\nNow and in time to be,
\nWherever green is worn,
\nAre changed, changed utterly:
\nA terrible beauty is born.<\/p>\n