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Growing Old The Rose Tree: Matthew Arnold

Paragraph 1: The poem "Easter, 1916" by William Butler Yeats describes how the poet used to casually pass acquaintances in Dublin but has now been changed by the Easter Rising rebellion in 1916. A terrible beauty is born from the rebellion and the revolutionaries who fought have been transformed. Paragraph 2: The poem lists some of the revolutionaries involved in the uprising like MacDonagh, MacBride, Connolly and Pearse who dreamed of Irish freedom and sacrificed themselves for their cause. Paragraph 3: In the end, the poet recognizes they and the landscape of Ireland have been utterly changed by the events

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109 views2 pages

Growing Old The Rose Tree: Matthew Arnold

Paragraph 1: The poem "Easter, 1916" by William Butler Yeats describes how the poet used to casually pass acquaintances in Dublin but has now been changed by the Easter Rising rebellion in 1916. A terrible beauty is born from the rebellion and the revolutionaries who fought have been transformed. Paragraph 2: The poem lists some of the revolutionaries involved in the uprising like MacDonagh, MacBride, Connolly and Pearse who dreamed of Irish freedom and sacrificed themselves for their cause. Paragraph 3: In the end, the poet recognizes they and the landscape of Ireland have been utterly changed by the events

Uploaded by

Aamir Talpur
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Growing Old The Rose Tree

By Matthew Arnold By William Butler Yeats


What is it to grow old? 'O words are lightly spoken,'
Is it to lose the glory of the form, Said Pearse to Connolly,
The luster of the eye? 'Maybe a breath of politic words
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Has withered our Rose Tree;
—Yes, but not this alone. Or maybe but a wind that blows
Across the bitter sea.'
Is it to feel our strength—
Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay?
Is it to feel each limb 'It needs to be but watered,'
Grow stiffer, every function less exact, James Connolly replied,
Each nerve more loosely strung? 'To make the green come out again
And spread on every side,
Yes, this, and more; but not And shake the blossom from the bud
Ah, ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould To be the garden's pride.'
be!
’Tis not to have our life 'But where can we draw water,'
Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, Said Pearse to Connolly,
A golden day’s decline. 'When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
’Tis not to see the world
There's nothing but our own red blood
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
Can make a right Rose Tree.'
And weep, and feel the fullness of the past,
The years that are no more.

It is to spend long days


And not once feel that we were ever young;
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion—none.

It is—last stage of all—


When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man
Easter, 1916 A terrible beauty is born.

By William Butler Yeats Hearts with one purpose alone


I have met them at close of day Through summer and winter seem
Coming with vivid faces Enchanted to a stone
From counter or desk among grey To trouble the living stream.
Eighteenth-century houses. The horse that comes from the road,
I have passed with a nod of the head The rider, the birds that range
Or polite meaningless words, From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Or have lingered awhile and said Minute by minute they change;
Polite meaningless words, A shadow of cloud on the stream
And thought before I had done Changes minute by minute;
Of a mocking tale or a gibe A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
To please a companion And a horse plashes within it;
Around the fire at the club, The long-legged moor-hens dive,
Being certain that they and I And hens to moor-cocks call;
But lived where motley is worn: Minute by minute they live:
All changed, changed utterly: The stone's in the midst of all.
A terrible beauty is born.
Too long a sacrifice
That woman's days were spent Can make a stone of the heart.
In ignorant good-will, O when may it suffice?
Her nights in argument That is Heaven's part, our part
Until her voice grew shrill. To murmur name upon name,
What voice more sweet than hers As a mother names her child
When, young and beautiful, When sleep at last has come
She rode to harriers? On limbs that had run wild.
This man had kept a school What is it but nightfall?
And rode our wingèd horse; No, no, not night but death;
This other his helper and friend Was it needless death after all?
Was coming into his force; For England may keep faith
He might have won fame in the end, For all that is done and said.
So sensitive his nature seemed, We know their dream; enough
So daring and sweet his thought. To know they dreamed and are dead;
This other man I had dreamed And what if excess of love
A drunken, vainglorious lout. Bewildered them till they died?
He had done most bitter wrong I write it out in a verse—
To some who are near my heart, MacDonagh and MacBride
Yet I number him in the song; And Connolly and Pearse
He, too, has resigned his part Now and in time to be,
In the casual comedy; Wherever green is worn,
He, too, has been changed in his turn, Are changed, changed utterly:
Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

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