The Lake Isle of Innisfree

In his introduction to a reading of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” on October 4, 1932, Yeats notes that the impetus for the poem came from seeing a fountain used in a window advertisement, “in London when I was about twenty-three […] it set me thinking of Sligo and lake water” (“W.B. Yeats Reads The Lake Isle of Innisfree”). Sligo was Yeats’s boyhood home in Ireland and Innisfree was an uninhabited island located about five miles from there.

Initially, the poem seems to begin with the speaker embracing their agency to leave their current life. They note they “will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree” (Line 1). This emphasis on “will” (Line 1) suggests the speaker may move freely and indeed, easily make their way to Innisfree. Ideally, the speaker pictures a home in this natural area, which they value. However, the poignancy of the poem rests in its last lines which explain the reality of the speaker’s existence within an urban environment instead. The speaker populates a “roadway, or [is] on the pavements grey” (Line 11). This informs the reader that the escape to Innisfree is in fact imagined rather than a realistic relocation.

The vivid descriptions of the island itself suggest that the speaker has visited Innisfree in the past, and they hope to someday return, although it’s not clear when, or if, this can happen. In their reverie, the speaker imagines living on the island in the middle of Innisfree, with minimal accouterments. They envision building “a small cabin” (Line 2) from “clay and wattles” (Line 2), materials found on the island. Daub and wattle building construction uses vertical stakes, called wattles, which are horizontally woven with branches and twigs, then covered over with wet mud. When dried, this creates a waterproof structure. The speaker notes they would also plant “nine bean-rows” (Line 3) and have “a hive for the honey-bee” (Line 3), suggesting simple sustainable sources for sustenance. This green world is simple and idyllic, a sort of Eden that replaces the dreary city “pavements” (Line 11).

On this island, filled with naturally growing heather, which is a lavender-colored flowering shrub, color and light are magical. The “veils of the morning” (Line 6) suggest a mist rising over the lake while “[m]idnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow” (Line 8). Noise, too, is natural and comforting, rather than human-made. The glade is “bee-loud” (Line 4) and the “cricket sings” (Line 7). The “linnet” (Line 8), a small brown bird, fills up the “evening” (Line 8) with the beat of its wings (Line 8). Linnets also sing when they take flight, so there is implied birdsong. In this richness, the speaker will “live alone” (Line 4) in ease and tranquility.

The primary reason the speaker desires to go to Innisfree, aside its beauty, is because they feel they “shall have some peace there” (Line 5). This suggests that they are not quiet and content in their current circumstance. At Innisfree, however, “peace comes dropping slow” (Line 5)—to shroud them like the morning mist. The slowness of this life is contrasted with the speaker’s current position on a busy city street—in Yeats’s biographical account, the Strand, a major thoroughfare in London. It is clear the speaker yearns not only for the landscape of the idyllic Innisfree itself, but also a return to the more peaceful inner landscape as well. They want a self which has previously known peace.

The longing to “arise and go now” (Lines 1, 9) is paramount in the speaker’s mind. Yet, the destination is not some new place but rather a return to the familiar and the sacred. The desire for Innisfree—both the island and what it represents—runs throughout the speaker’s daily life. The speaker feels that “always night and day” (Line 9), they are haunted by the imagined place, “hear[ing] lake water lapping” (Line 10). This becomes for them an internalized beat, within “the deep heart’s core” (Line 12). This reference to the center of the deepest part of the heart suggests that Innisfree and the way it makes the speaker feel is the crux of their entire existence. It is the essential part of their soul. In this way, the nostalgia for Innisfree is not just for an external landscape but an internal one as well.