Happy Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day! From the Academy of American Poets’ list of 15 poems in the public domain designated for Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day – April 26, 2018 (p. 71), and already one of my long-adored poems, Irish poet W. B. Yeats provides this moment to bask in the glory of great verse from 130 years ago, during National Poetry Month and ever after.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W. B. 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.
1888
Note: The lake embracing Yeats’ longed-for island is Lough Gill, which straddles Counties Sligo and Leitrim, near the west coast of northwest Ireland. Innisfree, ironically now a well-known tourist spot thanks to Yeats, lies in County Sligo, along the lake’s south side.
My favorite stanza of the three: 1
My favorite line in the stanza: 4
My favorite phrase in line 4:
“bee-loud glade”
which I first shared in the post
Five-Phrase Friday (4): Grammar Compound
What’s in your pocket?
If you liked this poem, you may also enjoy:
- “Blackberrying” by Sylvia Plath (FPNP 4), excerpts shared here
- “Corsons Inlet” by A. R. Ammons (FPNP 8), sample here
- “The Moose” by Elizabeth Bishop (FPNP 2), excerpted with her poem “The Fish”
- “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy, sample here
- Five-Phrase Friday (1): The Poetry Politic – snippets of five different poems
- Five-Phrase Friday (21): Original Poetry – from Hocking Hills, central Ohio
- Wild Verses: Bits of Nature Poetry, 1 of 10 – lines of original nature verse
Other posts in my series on famous poets’ nature poetry (FPNP):
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (1): Sun Spots
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (1a): “The Sunlight on the Garden”
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (3): Wordsworth’s Daffodils
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (5): Of Mice, Men and Rabbie Burns
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (6): Hugh MacDiarmid in Scots
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (6)–Oh, NOW I Get It!: Hugh MacDiarmid in Scots
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (7): Black Legacies
- Famous Poets’ Nature Poetry (8): “Corsons Inlet” by A.R. Ammons
Philosofishal by Carrie Tangenberg 