Lake Isle of Innisfree

“I can’t ‘arise and go’ to Innisfree, but I can go to Stenness”

theorkneynews

February 11, 2022

1–2 minutes

Bernie Bell, Culture, Innisfree, Poems, Stenness, Yeats

By Bernie Bell

I was thinking – I need to find some peace. And I was thinking of W.B. Yeats’ poem ‘Lake Isle of Innisfree’.

I can’t ‘arise and go’ to Innisfree, but I can go to Stenness, and ‘hear lake-water lapping with low sounds by the shore.’

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 grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

3 responses to “Lake Isle of Innisfree”

Eamonn Keyes

February 11, 2022 at 9:33 am

My favourite poem by my favourite poet

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1. berniebell1955
  
  February 11, 2022 at 10:27 am
  
  Many years ago – and I mean many – well over 40, I knew someone who had a recording of Yeats reciting this. Can you imagine it? It rolled off his tongue. Sometimes I try to recite it in the same way – Mike hears me and thinks ‘Yeats is in the house.”
  That would be a bit worrying – a fine poet, but a bit worryingly weird.
  Hey – this time it’s me that had a close encounter – kind of.
  
  And there’s ‘The Stolen Child’ –
  
  “Come away, O human child!
  To the waters and the wild
  With a faery, hand in hand,
  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”
  
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‘The Stolen Child’ – The Orkney News

February 18, 2022 at 12:01 am

[…] of Innisfree https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/02/11/lake-isle-of-innisfree/ got me thinking of Yeats and his love for and understanding of the wild places and […]

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