EXPLORING Easter, 1916


This is a very complex, highly controversial and deeply political poem. It consists of four stanzas with the rhyming scheme abab, cdcd, efef used throughout. Yeats liked to insert riddles and clues into his works, and he cleverly embeds the date of the Easter Rising into the structure of this poem: there are sixteen lines in the first and third stanzas (for 1916), twenty-four lines in the second and fourth stanzas (the Rising began on 24 April), and four stanzas in total (April is the fourth month of the year). The first, second and fourth stanza conclude with the repetition of the powerful phrase ‘A terrible beauty is born.’ The poem was written in the immediate aftermath of the Rising, but not published until 1921.


‘Easter, 1916’ initially seems to begin as an apology to the middle class political agitators whom Yeats previously scorned: ‘I have met them at close of day/ Coming with vivid faces/ From counter or desk among grey/ Eighteenth-century houses.’ The adjective ‘vivid’ suggests their faces were animated. It contrasts with the grey of their working lives and suggests that nationalism was their real passion. He uses repetition to convey his indifference to them and their politics: ‘I have passed with a nod of the head/ Or polite meaningless words,/ Or have lingered awhile and said/ Polite meaningless words’. It is natural to wonder what these polite, meaningless words might have been. He admits to laughing at them behind their backs: ‘And thought before I had done/ Of a mocking tale or a gibe/ To please a companion/ Around the fire at the club’. This is quite an honest admission, and paints Yeats as a snob, thinking of how he would make fun of them at his gentleman’s club the entire time he was talking to them. In his defence, he explains that he simply didn’t take them seriously, and believed that nothing would ever come of their plans to overthrow the British: ‘Being certain that they and I/ But lived where motley is worn’. If everyone is wearing a jester’s costume, then no one can be taken seriously. However, he acknowledges that the Easter Rising changed his view dramatically: ‘All changed, changed utterly:/ A terrible beauty is born.’ The clever juxtaposition (contrast) of ‘terrible’ and ‘beauty’ illustrates Yeats’ genius as a writer. In two words he encapsulates the complex event that was the Easter Rising. It was beautiful because of the determination and sacrifice of those who took part in it, but it was terrible because their achievements cost them their lives and the lives of others.


In the second stanza Yeats covertly discusses some of the most iconic figures of those involved in the Rising, yet he doesn’t mention anyone by name. He begins with an unflattering portrait of his old friend, Constance Markiewicz: ‘That woman’s days were spent/ In ignorant good-will,/ Her nights in argument/ Until her voice grew shrill.’ The juxtaposition of ‘ignorant’, meaning lack of knowledge or education, and ‘good-will’ suggests Markiewicz may have had the best of intentions, but was oblivious to the truth of the situation. The word ‘shrill’ has connotations of hysteria. He contrasts her high- pitched voice now with the voice she had when young: ‘What voice more sweet than hers/ When, young and beautiful’. Yeats’ portrayal of Padraig Pearse is more flattering: ‘This man had kept a school/ And rode our wingèd horse’. The school Yeats mentions


152 VERSE 2022


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