Yeats’s dream island
MY DAUGHTER recently asked me whether or not William Butler Yeats actually did ever go to Innisfree, and if, in fact, such a place even existed or if it were some form of escapism. A dream or a wish? And if so, what was he escaping from?
Well, yes, although Innisfree was and remains a real place, a small lake island in Lough Gill, Yeats never did actually get to live there and live his ideal life in solitude and tranquillity as suggested and longed for in his poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
And what was he hoping to escape from? Quite simply, in his eyes, a failed society, and not for the first or last time. Time and again the works of Yeats return to that same theme: escape to a happier place.
Stolen Child, The Fisherman and September 1913 all see the writer wishing for a different world, or a different Ireland. The yearning to return to something more innocent and trustworthy.
But in this poem, there is no bitterness, no anger and only the barest hint of frustration. In order to maximise the beauty of the poem, of its 12 lines divided into three equal stanzas, only one line, the second last, indicates what it is he wishes to escape from, and even that is dealt with delicately. In this case, the roadways and grey pavements of London.
So how does he paint the image of this longed-for utopia? How does he successfully conjure up for the reader a sense of peacefulness and simplicity? He employs three basic methods.
Firstly, there are no complexities to the structure of the poem. It is short, with three stanzas of four lines with a straightforward rhyming scheme.
Secondly, his choice of words and image in building the simple vision. All truly sensuous and soft as they appeal to our senses. The sounds of the bees, the wings of the linnet, the lapping water by the shore. The peace that drops slowly from the veils of morning. Peace and slow, peace and slow, heard in the ‘deep heart’s core’. The traditionally constructed cabin, the simple garden and the reflected beauty of the lake, gently surrounding and protecting the isle in its isolation. Even the choice, and repetition of his decision to ‘arise and go’ is more thoughtful than reactionary.
And finally, the wonderful iambic meter of the poem. The first three lines of each stanza have a six-stress, and the final, shorter line, a four-stress, the last two perhaps in our mind, if we close our eyes, like the beginning of a dream after a lullaby?
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.
How fitting that this beautiful, gentle poem appears on page 22 of the current Irish passport!
Have a look at it next time you need to escape the endless hospital waiting lists, the non-stop governmental enquiries or the weather. And as for my daughter? She has since told me that her ‘happy place’ is a star in the night sky. She picks one, stares at it, in her mind escapes to it, and for a short while enjoys the silence and tranquillity.