Poem
The
I will arise and
go now, and got 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 I the
bee-loud glade.
And I shall have
some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the
veils of the mourning 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.
The
Source: http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/775/
Analysis
William Butler Yeats(1865-1939) was
an Irish
poet, a dramatist and a prose writer, and he was ‘one of the greatest English-language poets of
the 20th century’ (William Butler Yeats – Biography and Works, Jalic
LLC, 200-2006, http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/. Day of access: May 9th)
This poem is dived in three stanzas with four lines
each one and its rhyme is abab. This poem is mainly about nature and about how
he wanted his live to be in that moment of his life.
But although he is talking about an ideal place, he
uses a pessimistic tone. Probably because he knows that ideal place will never
exist or if it does he will never have the opportunity to be there.
In the title he uses the word ‘Innisfree’, which he
uses to name a place that does not really exist. It contains the word ‘free’,
which makes the reader imagine which topic he is going to talk about in this
poem.
From the very first verse (‘I will arise and go now,
and go to Innisfree’) the author is evoking his desire of immediately going to
Innisfree to feel free. His desire of going there alone, with no more people,
reflects a common problem in society that will probably always remain. We all
think of an ideal place to live, but in the real life the places where we live
are very different to our desired ones.
In our daily life we experience some difficult moments
that we would not experience in a place like Innisfree, which is all nature.
Yeats uses metaphors related to nature and he makes us think of a very
beautiful place that we would love to be in. So living in a place like
Innisfree would be the only way of escaping from society.
Living in contact with nature would make us feel peace
and relaxation, as he says: ‘And I shall
have some peace there’ (line 5). We all dream sometimes of a very peaceful
place where we can disconnect from our problems.
He starts the last stanza with the same words that he
uses in the first stanza: ‘I will arise and go now’ (line 1 and 9). This is
emphasizing his wish to leave and feel free in Innisfree. He would love to stay
in that ideal place ‘for always night and day’ (line 9).
We find a verse at the end of the poem that makes us
go back to reality, back to society, and it is in that moment when his dream is
broken, his dream place where he will never be in. ‘While I stand on the
roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core’ (lines
11 and 12). Using the colour grey the poet makes us think of the colour of
society, the colour of the cities, which is grey, a dark and depressing colour.
But he still hears it ‘in the deep heart’s core’,
which means he would really love to be in a peaceful place like Innisfree.
It should be mentioned how much importance Yeats gives
to the imagination and dreams. Thanks to our imagination and dreams we can
travel wherever we want and forget about reality.
After reading this poem you feel like you have
travelled to a very special place, it feels like a dream. It is a brilliant
poem that makes the reader feel identified with the author’s feelings. I think
almost every one has had a dream like that. Who has not wished some time to
leave the stressful live we carry in our society and appear in a very beautiful
and quiet place in contact with nature?
SOURCES
The
William Butler
Yeats – Biography and Works, Jalic LLC, 2000-2006, http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/ . Day of access: May 9th .