Tuesday, March 17, 2009

For St. Patrick's Day

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:
A terrible beauty is born.
WB Yeats

I just love the rhythm of those names there-- and Ireland too.
Alicia

2 comments:

Jordan McCollum said...

You know the significance of the names, too, yeah?

I'm just finishing (right this very minute, I hope) my latest MS with Irish characters, and I needed somewhere to show off my research ;) .

Pearse and Connolly were Irish revolutionaries in the Easter Rising in 1916, and both were executed for their roles. Let me go look up the other two—yep, same deal.

But yes, they have a much nicer rhythm than some of the other martyrs, like Markiewicz and Sheehy-Skeffington.

Edittorrent said...

Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

There's some Yeats for ya.
T