Easter, 1916

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 Connally and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly;
A terrible beauty is born.
  William Butler Yeats

I have to thank Chris Matthews of MSNBC for reminding me of this, the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising, which began Ireland's last climb to freedom. Matthews also quoted pieces of this poem, which is a favorite of mine. The history of Ireland is a history of oppression and repression and constant battle for liberty. Americans feel kinship with the Irish because of that.

Note: Although Easter Monday should always be celebrated for the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, Easter, itself falls on different dates each year. Today, April, 24th. is the actual hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Spring: Two Takes

        Spring

Fresh clean air
In its icycold purity
Is supplanted each day
By polluted wind
Growing hot and fetid
More and more                                                  

Daylight melts the ices
And life seethes in again
  Christopher Mahon
                                                                          Putting in the Seed

                                                          You come to fetch me from my work tonight
                                                          When supper's on the table, and we'll see
                                                          If I can leave off burying the white
                                                          Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
                                                          (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
                                                          Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea),
                                                          And go along with you ere you lose sight
                                                          Of what you came for and become like me,
                                                          Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
                                                          How love burns through the Putting in the Seed
                                                          On through the watching for that early birth
                                                          When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
                                                          The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
                                                          Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
                                                              Robert Frost

The Rose Tree

'O words are lightly spoken,'
Said Pearse to Connolly,
'Maybe a breath of politic words
Has withered our Rose Tree;
Or maybe but a wind that blows
Across the bitter sea.'

'It needs to be but watered,'
James Connolly replied,
'To make the green come out again
And spread on every side,
And shake the blossom from the bud
To be the garden's pride.'

'But where can we draw water,'
Said Pearse to Connolly,
'When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There's nothing but our own red blood
can make a right Rose Tree.'
  William Butler Yeats

This poem is dedicated to Ireland, and every nation that has conquered tyranny, or will.

The Importance of Words

  Amongst all the fear mongering from the ironically named right wing, and the impassioned response of the left; we have forgotten something (if we ever knew it.) We have conflated invulnerability with invincibility. There are two things we must remember: We are invincible. We are not invulnerable.
  The United States is still, by far, the most powerful nation on earth. No nation or group of nations could defeat us. Terrorists? Zero chance. But by forgetting the difference between those two words, we give the terrorists their opening. For while we are, absolutely, invincible; as a free society we are also vulnerable-- we can be hurt. If we fail to make the distinction between the two, or worse-- if we come to believe that the two are inextricably combined, then we run the risk of becoming a closed, paranoid state, like so many others in history. And just as those preying on our fears seem to want.
  We can survive attack. We survived September 11th. We survived the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the massacre in San Bernardino. And we will survive the next attack when it comes. Just as the French survived the Paris attacks, as the British survived the London bombings, as the Spanish survived their attacks; and as every other nation has survived. It is only by giving in to fear and stooping to their level that we will let the terrorists win.
  Benjamin Franklin said that those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither. I would like to remind the cowards and fear-mongers among us that the first duty of the government is not to protect us at any cost. The first duty of our government is to protect our freedom at any cost.
 

For Donald Fucking Trump

              Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works ye Mighty and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley