The Hyderabad Public School (Academic Year:2015-16) Subject:English Worksheet Class-7 The Lake Isle of Innisfree Summary/Analysis of the Poem 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. In this stanza, the poet says that he will wake up and go to the island of Innisfree. This implies two things. He compares his life in the city to a slumber. When he wakes up, and finally enters consciousness, he will be transported away from that sedentary life. He will be transported to Innisfree. From his passive life in the city, he will be awakened to a life of activity. In particular, the poet mentions two activities that he would like to engage in, and that he ostensible connects with the country life in general physical labour, and beekeeping. He says he will build a cottage out of clay and other miscellaneous materials like wood or metal. He also says he will plant rows of bean stalks. Finally, he will propagate a colony of bees, and as a result, the sound of their buzzing will fill the entire environment. 2 nd stanza: 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. In this stanza, the poet says that his life on the island of Innisfree will be peaceful. He especially connects peacefulness with the early morning. He thinks peace will come to him most readily as morning comes, and he wakes up to the sound of crickets chirping. He compares the morning to a woman who is veiled. This means, that when the sun rises, morning drops her veil of darkness and brings peace upon the country setting of Innisfree. However, the poet also mentions that night time is not the only time of day that appeals to him when he is at Innisfree. Midnight is just as beautiful, with the stars shining brightly in the sky. So is noon, and also evening which is replete with the sound of the linnet birds melodious song. 3 rd stanza: 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. In this stanza, the poet makes a resolution that he will go to Innesfree at the very time of his writing the poem, for Innesfree is never out of his mind. Throughout the day and the night, he can only hear one sound in his mind that of the water reaching the shore of the island of Innesfree at a calm pace and creating a soft, tranquil sound. He hears this sound deep within his own heart as he goes about his life in the urban setting of roadways and pavements. This urban setting contains none of the colours that make Innesfree beautiful and instead appears grey and banal. Yeats makes a decision at the beginning of this poem. He says, 'I will arise and go now.' He has
decided to make the break from modern society and all of the hectic madness it can bring and go to a place he loves, Innisfree. Yeats then describes Innisfree. He decides to build a cabin of clay and 'wattles' to live in. Wattles are strong sticks that interweave to form a structure. He imagines his garden with exactly nine rows for growing beans, and he wants to have a beehive for honey. He then will live by himself in the 'bee-loud glade.' Here Yeats wonderfully expresses that all he will hear is the loud drone of bees, not the drone of civilization. The next line is really the crux of what Yeats longs for in Innisfree - peace. By saying that 'peace comes dropping slow,' Yeats continues to let us know that from the time the morning dawns until evening when the 'cricket sings,' there is a gradual pacing of the day until evening falls. There is no stress, no noise. All is an expression of peace. Midnight is 'all a glimmer' with stars, and he calls noon a 'purple glow.' There are small birds, or linnets. Once again, Yeats affirms that now is the time to 'arise and go' because he always hears 'lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.' Yeats lived in London when he wrote this poem, and he didn't literally hear the lake. He heard it in his memory. He longed for that peaceful SHORT QUESTIONS Q: And I shall have some peace there. How shall the poet have peace in Innisfree? A: The poet wants to have peace there. It shall come to him in morning. The cricket and linnet will ising, mornings, noons, evenings and midnights shall have natural peace and beauty. Q: How will the poet enjoy the night and the day? A: He will hear the song of the cricket in the morning. He will enjoy seeing the noon purple lglow. He will look and enjoy the glimmer of midnights. Q: How are the pavements different from the The lake isle of Innisfree? A: The pavements are dull grey as the poet stands on the roadway. But Isle of Innisfree and its ssurrounding are naturally beautiful. Q: What kind of place is Innisfree? Think about. A: It is a place where nature is beautiful, alive and full of life. Q: The three things the poet wants to do when he goes back there. a) He will build a small cabin of clay and fence. b) He will have nine bean rows. c) He will have a hive for the honey bees. Q: What he hears and sees there and its effect on him. A: He will hear peace come dropping. He will hear the cricket sing. He will see the midnight hine. Noon purple shall glow. The evenings have linnets wings. Q: What he hears in his heart s core even when he is far away from Innisfree. A: He hears the lake water lapping the shore with low sound.by now you may have concluded that IInnisfree is a simple, natural place, full of beauty and peace. Q: How does the poet contrast it with where he now stands?a: The Innisfree is a beautiful place. It sis full of peace. The crickets sing here. The midnights shine here. The noons have a purple glow.
TThe evenings have linnets symbolises dryness and decay. Thus there is a sharp contrast between his place and Innisfree. Q: Do you think Innisfree is only a place, or a state of mind? Does the poet actually miss the place f his boyhood days? A: It is a place which is full of beauty and peace. The physical features of the place prove that it is an actual place. The poet actually misses it. He has a deep desire to go to this place and he longs o live there. Q: Look at the words the poet uses to describe what he sees and hears at Innisfree. What pictures o these words create in your mind? i)bee-loud glade A: The picture that comes to my mind is of the green glade. There is natural peace and beauty round there is a honeycomb. The honey bees hum over and around it. ii) Evenings full of the linnet s wings A: The picture is of the linnet s fluttering its wings and sitting in the tree. The scene becomes ovely when more linnets come to a tree. They flutter and fly here. They create a pleasant sound. iii)lake water lapping with low sounds A: It is lovely scene when the lake water forms waves. These waves strike the lake s shore. They reate a peasant murmuring sound. The natural beauty of the place adds pleasure to the scene. Q: What do these words mean to you? What do you think come droppings low...from the veils f the morning? What does to where the cricket sings mean? A: These words mean the peace coming from all around when morning comes. The singing of the rcricket is pleasant. It adds sweetness to this peace. The cricket sings merrily to greet mmorning. may be singing a love song for its mate. SUMMARY This poem by William Butler Yeats is about his longing for the peace and tranquility of Innnisfree, a place where he spent a lot of time as a boy. It is a description of the beauty of the Lake of Innisfree. The natural beauty charms the poet greatly. He describes the natural scene of The Lake of Innisfree beautifully. He used to spend more time in that natural place. He longs or wishes to spend sometime in the natural lap of The Lake of Innisfree. The twelve-line poem is divided into three quatrains and is an example of Yeats s earlier lyric poems. Throughout the three short quatrains the poem explores the speaker s longing for the peace and tranquility of Innisfree while residing in an urban setting. The speaker in this poem yearns to return to the island of Innisfree because of the peace and quiet it affords. He can escape the noise of the city and be lulled by the "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore." On this small island, he can return to nature by growing beans and having bee hives, by enjoying the "purple glow" of noon, the sounds of birds' wings, and, of course, the bees. He can even build a cabin and stay on the island. This poem creates an interest among the readers to adopt the nature in their lives and to live life in natural environment. The poet wants to build a small cabin of clays and fence in the lake Isle of Innisfree. He wants to have nine bean rows and a hive for the honeybee. He will live alone in the glade full of bees sound and there will be peace all round, the singing of cricket, glimmer of midnight, purple glow all over the place at noon and song of the flying
linnet in evenings will charm and inspire him live in a natural place. He will spend some precious time in the lap of beautiful nature. Literary devices used in the poem Imaginery The poet creates pictures / images in the minds of the readers to stress a particular point. This poem has strong visual (appeal to eyes) and auditory (appeal to ears) imaginery. A - Visual Imaginery (veils of the morning, midnight's all a glimmer, noon a purple glow, evening full of the linnet's wings) B - Auditory Imaginery (bee-loud glade, cricket sings, lake water lapping) The images create a vivid picture of the place which gives a sense of inner peace and harmony. Metaphor The poet uses this to compare two or more things without using the words 'like' or 'as', e.g. 'peace (evening) comes dropping slow', veils of the morning. Alliteration The repetition of consonant sounds, e.g. 'lake water lapping with low sounds.' Repetition. In William Butler Yeat's poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," there are several figures of speech used. In the last line of the first stanza, Yeats writes, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. This is a beautiful example of imagery. Yeats also uses repetition, as seen in these lines from the second stanza, where "peace" and "dropping" are repeated. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils... Later, we find inference and imagery when Yeats writes: And evening full of the linnet's wings The inference here is that the evening is full of the sound of the fluttering of birds' wings. (A "linnet" is a kind of finch.) The imagery is the mental image we have of the sound of flapping birds' wings. In "where the cricket sings," personification is used, giving the cricket the human ability to sing, which a cricket cannot do. (This is also a form of imagery.) "There midnight's all a-glimmer" uses inference, inferring that the sky is full of stars or lightning bugs, or both. Imagery is used again in "and noon a purple glow..." "I hear lake water lapping" contains onomatopoeia in describing a sound with a word, "lapping." Imagery is also used in, "I hear it in the deep heart's core."
Overall, repetition is used in the lines, "I will arise and go now," repeated in the first line of the first stanza, and the first line of the third (and last) stanza. You might be interested to know that the poem is written in four-line stanzas, which follow the rhyme scheme of ABAB. This means that the last word of the first line and the last word of the third line, rhyme ("Innisfree" and "honeybee"). The second and the four lines also rhyme, but with a different sound ("made" and "glade").