The Terrible Beauty
“A terrible beauty is born”.
(Easter 1916: W. B. Yeats)
About the old High Places cling the louring clouds
Whilst wild winds whip their wraps and wring tears from those shrouds.
Ah!. Bitter drops they seem to me, bewailing loss
Of Irish innocence at seeing her rude Cross
Of Suffering desanctified by bomb and gun
Which, borne in passion’s awful pride, have quite undone
That beauty which inspired brave schemes, to leave behind
Only gross terrors whose régimes — from hatred mined —
Could soon consume the innate good of people who
Have never fully understood that, only through
Rejection of coercive force can they achieve
A decent outcome for their cause. When they believe,
And trust, in genuine democracy, (but not till then),
Will Ireland’s old High Places ever be tear-free again!.
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