All of his days, William Yeats loved the beautiful,
red-haired actress/mystic/revolutionary Maud Gonne.
Four times he asked Maud,
her heart brimming revolution and Theosophy.
He knelt, asked for her hand, but no forever.
She to him: ”marriage, a dull affair,
will ruin your poetry."
Instead, Gonne married a fierce revolutionary—
Major John McBride—
dashing, arrogant, ignorant,
brave right through his execution
for the Easter Uprising.
With him she bore a son, Sean.
Maud campaigned, marched,
organized for her love of country.
The Red Cross became
the White Cross for Ireland.
World-eyed, she helped birth
the African National Congress.
Fired by his mother’s heart, Sean,
a founder of Amnesty International,
received the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 2011, eighteen Egyptian women
were arrested, jailed, beaten,
searched with electric cattle prods.
One example of thousands,
Amnesty intervened
for justice over and over.
Broken-hearted, William—
her persistent rebuffs
birthed requited mercy.
Originally published in Euphemism Magazine