Easter, 1916 Vs. Break of Day in the Trenches

The poem Easter, 1916 by Yeats uses some obvious and not so obvious metaphors to describe the revolution of Ireland against the British in 1916. I think that Yeats is mainly saying in the first stanza that he is acquaintances with many of the revolutionaries at the time and he may not believe in their revolutionary tactics but he talks to them about it anyway. He then goes on to describe some of the people who were killed by the British whom he knew pretty well. The third stanza I think is talking about how many of the revolutionaries have only one purpose and their hearts are of stone meaning that no matter what happens they want this change in their country. And that many bad things may happen, but they will still fight for their beliefs. The recurring line "A terrible beauty is born" seems to represent the fact that even though many revolutionaries died at the hands of the British for their actions, their deaths inspired the rest of the country to fight for the same reasons they did and the country became more unified against the British.

This poem is different in its message than the poem by Rosenberg called Break of Day in the Trenches. Yeats' poem implies that the war that was fought was meaningful and the deaths of the people he described were important and not in vain. In Rosenberg's poem, he is stating that war is pointless and useless and all it does is cause unnecessary death and destruction. The subject of the poem is praising a rat because he is lucky that he does not have to deal with this war and worry about dying for a useless cause. The language in this poem is more depressing than than of Yeats'.