Too long a sacrifice

 

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

 

These lines have been extracted from W. B. Yeats's one of the best poems Easter 1916. Here the poet tells about the real nature of the sacrifice made by the revolutionaries in the Easter uprising of 1916.

 

According to the poet, a prolonged sacrifice hardens the heart. The heart cannot help becoming stone if it has to make too long a sacrifice. At the same time it is difficult to decide the stage at which one can say that the sacrifice already made is sufficient. It is for God to decide. All we can do is to mutter the names of those who have sacrificed themselves, just as a mother utters the name of her child with love and affection when, after the day's fatigue, the child has fallen asleep. The death of these men is like the sleep, which comes to a man at night These lines contain the result of Yeats's contemplation on the real nature of those people's sacrifice who lost their lives in the Easter uprising of 1916. At the same time, Yeats succeeds in conveying that the Irish people's sacrifices in their freedom struggle were prolonged and spread over a long period.