The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

The  Lake  Isle  Of  Innisfree

by

William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

This poem draws an enchanting picture of an idyllic place where Yeats yearns to be – it contrasts between where man is and where he would like to be. The feeling of time standing still, which is shared with the previously posted poem ‘Adlestrop‘, is a rare quality in a poem.

In Yeats own words.

“my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music”

Hear Yeats recite it in his own voice here.

But be prepared for the Irish accent which, considered musical by many, jars my unlearned Indian ears.  Each of us hears poetry recited in one’s mind very differently from the way some one else would recite it.

Credits – See embedded links. The lake picture above, taken from Wikimedia Commons,  is not Lough Gill in which Innisfree resides but another beautiful Irish lake.