WB Yeats's poetry effectively reconciles the personal and the universal in that, while speaking of personal experiences, he immortalizes these common and universal human experiences in his poetry. In order to understand how Easter 1916 encompasses both the personal and the universal, one must understand the context. It speaks of the sacrifice made by Irish republicans who sought independence from Great Britain and who lost their lives during the Easter Rising. Art was generally more romantic at the time than political. Yeats was creating something revolutionary by analyzing this historical event. It attracted public interest due to the widespread Irish nationalism at the time; the poem was published only five years after the initial event. Yeats uses free verse in iambic trimeter and rhythm to prolong the contemplation of certain lines and verses. The first stanza opens with the narrator meeting people he knows on the street, making them both capable of encompassing personal and universal ideas. The ABCBDD rhyme format is used and there is a feeling of melancholy throughout the poem. This is highlighted in lines such as “I have observed these brilliant creatures.” It's not entirely dreary though, there's also a slight sense of nostalgia. The poem takes place in autumn, the time of change. The notion of change links Easter 1916 and Wild Swans at Coole. It is the 19th autumn, the first of the odd numbers in the poem. The other is the description of the swans as "fifty-nine swans", also an odd number. This creates the feeling that something is wrong. “Still” is repeated 4 times throughout the poem. The double meaning of still refers to the idea of ​​continuous (as in “they are still running”) or stillness (as in “this deer is still”). Both ideas are applicable to Yeats's beliefs about the paradox of