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.

When at first reading this poem there were some definities and research that needed to be done in order to better understand its meaning. I looked up who William Butler Yeats is and what Innisfree is as well. William Yeats is an Irish poet and playwright. He was born in Country Siglo and studied poetry in Dublin. He is known for his intrest in the occult and inIrish legends. The occult is the idea the knowledge is only known by people who were meant to understand it, it is also know as knowledge of the paranormal. Innisfree, whose name means "heather island" in Gaelic, is an island off the coast of Ireland of intense natural beauty. It is located in County Sligo, which is where Yeats's mother's family came from, and which he identified as the part of Ireland and the world closest to his heart. In the idea of building a home there and living as a hermit, Yeats was influenced by American transcendentalists such as Thoreau. He wrote in a letter: "My father read to me some passage out of Walden, and I planned to live some day in a cottage on a little island called Innisfree."

From this background information a reader can then better understand the poem. Yeats wrote this poem as a soothing connection with his hometown and with nature. He wants to return to the home of his heart and live there in tranquility and peace.

The structure of this poem is very particular and interesting. The rhyme scheme is very hard to pick up on but does exist. Yeats consistantly rhymes the first line and the third line. Also yeats rhymes the center word of the first line with the center word of the third line "there" "glimmer", "day" "roadway". Also the second line and the fourth line rhymes as well. From this rhyme scheme the reader can flow into the poem and see the tranquility of it. The words flowing like "water lapping with low sounds by the shore" can really influence the reader to take part in and appreciate nature and become one with it. The structure takes a major role in the peice as a whole.