Ambivalence
One central theme of the poem is ambivalence. This means having mixed or contradictory feelings. The speaker shows throughout the poem that one can commemorate the fighters of the Easter Rising without having to decide for certain whether or not what they did was good or right. This ambivalent attitude is clear from the repeated line “A terrible beauty is born.” That the Easter Rising can be both terrible and beautiful shows that certain historical events go beyond our moral judgments. We do not have to completely support them to be moved by them and recognize them as turning points.
Change
In the third stanza, the speaker argues that change is the essence of nature. The line “minute by minute they change” refers to horses, birds, chickens, and clouds. Nature is also cyclical, changing through “summer and winter.” The stone is described as something that exists outside of this law of change. It is a symbol of the steadfast heart of the revolutionary. It does not change because it has “one purpose alone.” The stone sits still in the middle of a stream: while the stream is constantly changing and moving, the stone is immovable. For this reason, the stone “trouble[s] the living stream," the same way the revolutionary’s unchanging heart seems to trouble the very laws of nature.
Historical destiny
The poem suggests that while people may try to intervene in history, the results go far beyond whatever they intended. For example, one of the revolutionaries “has resigned his part/In the casual comedy.” This means that trying to change history also involves giving up control and playing whatever role destiny determines. While this revolutionary tried to change the world, “He, too, has been changed in his turn.”
Sacrifice
“Too long a sacrifice,” the speaker notes, “Can make a stone of the heart.” By renouncing their lives in the name of a cause, the revolutionaries have become hardened. This means that they are even willing to risk death for the sake of an independent Ireland. This type of sacrifice is a form of craziness for the speaker: “And what if excess of love/Bewildered them till they died?” Their sacrifice comes from a love for their people and country, but the results are deadly and irreversible.
Martyrdom
While the poem is ambivalent about the revolutionaries’ actions, it suggests that they have been somehow transformed or ennobled in death. For example, one of them was a “drunken, vainglorious lout” but his execution has made him “changed in his turn,/Transformed utterly.” Death has transformed these men beyond whatever they were in life. They stand for something larger than themselves and for that they will be remembered “Now and in time to be,/Wherever green is worn” (green being the symbolic color of Ireland).
