The Feast of Christ's Rise, Year One Nine One Six

 I have met them at close of day:
 Came they with sharp, bright, face then
 From shop's till or desk midst the grey
 Homes of a time now long passed on.
 I have gone by with a nod of the head
 Or nice words, which mean nil,
 And thought, ere I'd come to the end,
 Of a tart tale, or a jibe
 To please an old friend,
 'round the fire at the club
 So sure that they and I, and more,
 But lived where pied robes are worn
 All changed, changed, to the core
 A grand and dark grace is born.

 That girl spent her days
 Sans thought, filled with good will,
 Spent her nights in word frays
 'til her voice grew shrill.
 What voice than hers more sweet
 When, young, full of good looks,
 She rode at hounds' feet?
 This man kept a school, and books,
 And rode our wing'd horse;
 This one his aide and friend
 Would soon have the use of his force;
 He might have won fame in the end
 So soft and pure his self seemed,
 So brave and sweet his thought.
 And then that man I had dreamed
 A drunk, vain, a sot, a lout.
 He had done the worst of wrong
 To some who are near my heart,
 Yet still I place him in the song;
 He too, has gone from his part
 In the day by day games and chores;
 He, too, has been changed in his turn,
 New: new to the core;
 A grand and dark grace is born.

 Hearts with but one aim locked
 Through hot days and cold days seem
 By a spell changed to rock
 To trouble the free run stream.
 The horse that comes from the road,
 The man on the horse, the birds that range
 From cloud, cloud up and down, to cloud,
 From nonce to nonce they change;
 A shade of cloud on the stream
 Is new, now new, once more new:
 A steed's hoof slides on the brim
 And the splash of the steed through;
 The stilt legg'd moor hens dive,
 And hens to moor cocks call,
 From nonce to nonce they live,
 The stone's in the midst of it all.

 Too long a gift of self's light
 Can make a stone of the heart.
 O when may it come right?
 That is our God's part, our part
 To soft say name and name,
 As a child's mam names her child
 When sleep at last has come
 On limbs that had run wild.
 What is it but the fall of night?
 No, no, not night but death;
 Was there no point to the deaths, no right?
 For the Brits may keep faith
 For all that is done and said.
 We know their dream; it will do
 To know they dreamed and are dead
 And what if too much love, too,
 Lost them their way 'til they died?
 I write it out in a verse --
 Son of Don, and son of Bride
 And a man of Conn, and Pearse,
 Now and in time e'er more
 Where this green is worn,
 Are changed, changed to the core;
 A grand and dark grace is born.

                                -- Will Yeats
                                   (done by Rich Hort)

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