The Lake Isle of Innisfree is written by W.B Yeats who was born in 1865 and he is considered as the 20 century poet. William Butler Yeats was Irish and he had deep love for his homeland that is also clear in his work. He often talks about his homeland, about heroes who sacrificed for the land and the beauty of his land. Yeats was also one of the founders of Abbey Theatre that is national theatre of Ireland and successfully working until now.
Here I am writing down some important points with the stanzas of the poem, so it will be easy for you to memorize it.
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree is written in 1890.
- It was published in the volume The Rose in 1893. The Rose is collection of 22 poems and The Lake Isle of Innisfree is one of them.
- Yeats wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree in the beginning of his poetic career.
- In The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Yeats talks about a place Innisfree that is combination of Yeats’ real memories and what he thinks about the place. It is a “combination of real and Ideal world”.
- It is a kind of revived memory of Yeats and that memory has given him beautiful moments.
- The poem is written in three quatrains and it is twelve-line poem.
“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nina bean-rows will I have been there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade”.
(W.B Yeats)
Yeats says that he will go to Innisfree. During his stay, he will build a small cabin of clay and wattles (A material for making fences, walls, etc., consisting of rods or stakes interlaced with twigs or branches https://www.lexico.com/definition/wattle) and he will have a bean field.
He will also have a beehive there and live in solitude in that valley and the only sound will be of humming of the bees.
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
(W.B Yeats)
The poet feels that he will have peace there and this peace will come in the form of dewdrops that come through the morning mists and the cricket’s shrill (high pitch sound) note.
The midnight glows with the light of shining stars and noon has a soft light. In the evening, the linnets fly and make sweet songs.
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 grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
(W.B Yeats)
The Poet again repeats that he will go to Innisfree and he cannot forget the music of the lake water when it used to beat against the shore. He can still hear the music even if he is on the road, pavement or in the city. This music has engraved on his heart and he can listen this music everywhere and anytime.
Yeats has beautiful memories of the place but he also has some imagination to make it his ideal place. He wants to go there to live those memorize again.
