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This excerpt is from a poem in which W.B. Yeats speaks about those who took part in the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916. What do these lines suggest about the speaker’s view of the rebels?


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.


A.He is repelled by their implacable hatred for the English.

B.He admires their fixity of purpose and their sacrifice for their country.

C.He wishes he could share their immovable commitment to their cause.

D.He feels that they have been unable to adapt to the changing times.

Verified Answer :

D. He feels that they have been unable to adapt to the changing times.

holesstanham

Answer: D. He feels that they have been unable to adapt to the changing times.

In this poem, W. B. Yeats speaks about the young men who took part in the Easter Rising. He also describes the context in which the men are situated. Yeats tells us that everything around them changes (the stream, the horse, the rider, the birds, etc.). However, the hearts of these men have "one purpose alone." Their hearts are stones, and these stones are in the middle of all the change, without being able to change themselves.

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