Recently, the observation was made that Joe Biden likes to quote the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Wouldn't it be grand to have a President with decency, an interest in policy and also who inspires with the English language rather than one who speaks to us in nonsense and at a third grade level?
Remarks by the Vice President to the Truman National Security Project and Center for National Policy
June 26th, 2015
My colleagues in the Senate for years used to kid me all the time because I’m always quoting Irish poets. (Laughter.) They think I do it because I’m Irish. (Laughter.) I don’t do it for that reason — they’re just simply the best poets. (Laughter and applause.) And one of my favorite poets is William Butler Yeats. And his 150th anniversary of his birth was this past month. And he wrote a poem about the first rising in Ireland in the 20th century. It was called “Easter Sunday, 1916.” And in that poem, he used the line that applies to today’s world in circumstance even more than it did to his Ireland, in my view, in 1916. He wrote, “All’s changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty has been born.” “All’s changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty has been born.” You’re all young, thank goodness, but all has changed in the last 15 years. In fundamental ways all has changed. Tides of history that were inevitable have risen up. All has changed. The terrible beauty is represented in both the problems and the opportunities.
No comments:
Post a Comment