Yeats, like Ferguson, saw "literature in Irish was an essential part of the education of any Irishman and tried to make it so" (O"Connor, 150). He toured Ireland and established the National Literary Society. His greatest ambition was to unite Catholic Ireland and Protestant Ireland through national literature. He loved Ireland and the Irish and wanted them to be one. Yeats never gave up his belief of uniting Ireland through language or on Ireland. However, he was troubled at the thought that his pen could be the cause of war. Although he was politically active, his focus was more on the cultural and literary realms than on a violent rebellion.

             "At the end of his life he was still wondering if his early writing had helped to seed the rising, to 'send out Certain men the English shot" ("The Man and the Echo, lines 11-12")" (DLB 19, 420). [I was unable to find a copy of "The Man and the Echo" in print so I downloaded and from the internet and have attached it.] He goes on further to question how because of his poems, he has caused the destruction of homes and families, "Could my spoken words have checked There whereby a house lay wrecked?" (The Man and the Echo, line 15-16). Yeats considers himself responsible for the death of his friends and others family. He is disappointed that his ink could be the reason for bloodshed.

             The "rising" that Yeats is talking about is the Easter Rising of 1916. On April 24, 1916, a group of Irishmen that called themselves the Irish Republican Brotherhood led by Padraic Pearse and James Connolly"s Ctizen Army, posted the Declaration of the Republic on the door of the General Post Office in Dublin and declared Ireland a free country. [I have also attached a copy of the Declaration of the Republic for reference.] Unfortunately, although anticipated by the nationalist"s leadership, the British Troops quickly suppressed the rebellion and the signatories were swiftly executed as an example to the Irish.