Easter 2023

(pace William Butler Yeats)

We have all met them at close of play
Looming with masked faces
From market stalls on a cold wet day
Running the gauntlet home.
We have passed their frightened eyes
With no polite meaningless words,
Or uttered to their great surprise
Polite meaningless words,
And formed after they had fled
Some subtle gibe or mocking taunt
To laugh with a friend instead
Over a Guinness in the snug.
Being certain that I and she
Still lived where freedom is worn:
All changed, changed latterly:
A terrible Silence is born.

 
That good doctor's days displayed
Self-interested resolute good-will,
Her nights full of frantic argument
Till her strident voice grew still.
What assurance greater than hers
When, armed with official truth
She parried away the VAERS?
This man shrank and kept aloof
And modelled blind compliance:
This other once his closest friend
Broke rank in stark defiance.
He might indeed have won the day
So sure and calm he seemed
So deep and sound his stance.
This other man had schemed
With bullying, self-righteous glance.
He has done most bitter harm
To many so close to my heart,
Yet I list him still in mute alarm;
He too has resigned his part
In this fatal tragedy;
He too, has been changed in his turn,
Disabled utterly:
A terrible Silence is born.

Hearts with love's purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted now as stone
So troubled their living stream.
Too soon this noble sacrifice
Will make a stone of the heart.
O when may it all 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 once ran wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For humans may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they were jabbed and are dead;
And what if misplaced trust
Bewilder others till they crock?
I'll write those names in a ditty—
Ferguson and Hancock,
And Farrar and Witty
Now and in time to be, whenever Trust is suborned,
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible Silence is born.