Easter, 1916

W. B. Yeats

Easter, 1916

London

Privately printed by Clement Shorter

1917

Yeats drafted “Easter, 1916” in France that summer, finalized the poem at Coole Park in September, and briefly considered making it the opening of his next collection, The Wild Swans at Coole. In the volatile political climate, however, he deemed this unwise. Sending a typescript to Clement Shorter in early 1917, he urged him to be “very careful” with it: “Lady Gregory asked me not to send it [to] you until we had finished our dispute with the [British] authorities about the Lane pictures. She was afraid of it getting about & damaging us & she is not timid.” Yeats allowed Shorter to print just twenty-five copies of the poem in this rare edition, but he carefully restricted distribution of these to friends who would not circulate them further.

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations