Address delivered at the Grave of Wolfe Tone in Bodenstown Churchyard, Co. Kildare, 22 June 1913
“Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”
September 1913 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1576/, st. 3
Responsibilities (1914)
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W.B. Yeats 255
Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939Related quotes
1840s, Past and Present (1843)
Context: Not a May-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, a warfare with principalities and powers. No idle promenade through fragrant orange-groves and green flowery spaces, waited on by the choral Muses and the rosy Hours: it is a stern pilgrimage through burning sandy solitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks among men; loves men, with inexpressible soft pity,—as they cannot love him: but his soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of Creation. In green oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but anon he has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and the Splendours, the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all Pandemonium are his escort. The stars keen-glancing, from the Immensities, send tidings to him; the graves, silent with their dead, from the Eternities. Deep calls for him unto Deep.
"Jean Francois", from Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches.
Bloody Sunday, every bloody Sunday, Eoghan Harris, Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/bloody-sunday-every-bloody-sunday-469764.html,
Epitaph of the Spartan Diviner, Megistias, at Thermopylae
“As we have already shed blood, we are ready to shed more blood!”
Source: Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)