***** 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? *****
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of JOANNA A. Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 12:32 PM To: lbo-talk Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Easter Rising Monday
Yeats wrote a poem about it:
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 to 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: A terrible beauty is born.
----- Original Message ----- I’ve just finished watching Ken Loach’s latest masterpiece, Jimmy’s Hall, on Netflix and this excellent Jacobin article marking the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Ireland makes an excellent companion piece. The article places the rising in its historical context - the forces which shaped it and the consequences which flowed from it.
The uprising was jointly launched by Pádraig Pearse’s nationalist Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Citizens’ Army under the command of the revolutionary socialist trade union leader James Connolly. Many women participated, notably Constance Markievicz, the prominent feminist and socialist who was a close ally of Connolly, and Elizabeth O’Farrell, an ally of Pearse’s who joined him in the occupation of Dublin’s Central Post Office.
The radical principles expressed by the Proclamation of the Irish Republic read out on Easter Monday 1916 bore the imprint of Markievicz and Connelly in particular. It was addressed to both “Irishmen and Irishwomen” and declared an end to British rule and "the right of the people to the ownership of Ireland”. It guaranteed religious and civil liberty and equal rights and equal opportunities for all, including universal suffrage, two years before women in Britain won the vote.
As we know, these principles, particularly the ones relating to gender equality, the separation of church and state, and public ownership were largely set aside by the conservative and clerical leadership of the Irish republic following the the war of independence against the British and partition of the country after World War I.
This weekend’s official ceremonies in Dublin and elsewhere confirmed, as the article notes, that “one hundred years after 1916, many of the most radical events that made Ireland’s revolution a profound challenge to the social order will not be commemorated”.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/easter-rising-ireland-james-connolly/ ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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