They're hanging Irish for the wearin of green

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Drunks in Patty-wagons barfing budweiser green down broadway 
It's a more efficient if not more Modest Proposal, more
beneficial to the Public, 
Drink, Drink and thread a camel through the O deleted from
your name.
Drink, you narrow backs in gaudy green.


In An Open Letter Seamus Heaney objected to Blake Morrison
and Andrew Motion, who referred to him a British in their
anthology The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry
(1982):

"Be advised! My passport's green./No glass of ours was ever
raised! To Toast The Queen'."	


Easter 1916

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 winged 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 by 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. 

            William Butler Yeats