

#Easter, 1916


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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition


### Background details and bibliographic information


Easter, 1916
============


Author: William Butler Yeats
----------------------------


### File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Rebecca Daly

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork 1. First draft.Extent of text: 1123 words#### Publication


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork  
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

 (2014) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.  
Text ID Number: E910001-057Availability [RESTRICTED] 
The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.


#### Notes

First published in 1916, in "an edition of 25 copies 'privately printed by Clement Shorter for distribution among his friends', and subsequently in the *New Statesman* (23 October 1920)" (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 225) and in the *Dial* for Nov. 1920 (Mayhew, p. 53).

#### Sources


**Literature (a small selection)**2. W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938).
3. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.]
4. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957).
5. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
6. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
7. George Mayhew, 'A Corrected Typescript of Yeats's "Easter 1916"', Huntington Library Quarterly 27/1 (November 1963) 53–71.
8. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
9. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
10. Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (Oxford/New York 2007).
11. A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel\_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html
**The edition used in the digital edition**2. William Butler Yeats Easter, 1916 in , Ed. William Butler Yeats Easter, 1916 (A Poem). Privately printed by Clement Shorter, London, (1916) pages 5pp

### Encoding


#### Project Description


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts


#### Sampling Declaration


The whole poem.


#### Editorial Declaration


##### Correction


The text has been proof-read twice.


##### Normalization


The electronic text represents the edited text.


##### Hyphenation


The editorial practice of the hard-copy editor has been retained.


##### Segmentation


div0= the individual poem, stanzas are marked lg.


##### Interpretation


Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.


### Profile Description


Created: (25 September 1916) #### Use of language


##### Language: [EN] The poem is in English.


### Revision History


* (2014-02-13) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created.
* (2014-02-12) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* Markup checked, TEI header created with bibliographical detail.
* (2014-02-10) Rebecca Daly (ed.)

* Structural markup applied according to CELT practice.
* (1996) Students at the CELT Project, UCC (ed.)

* First proofing.
* (1996) Donnchadh Ó Corráin (data capture)

* Text captured




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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-057


### Easter, 1916: Author: William Butler Yeats


1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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?
5. 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.
September 25, 1916











