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 wingèd 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: