Wordy Wednesday: The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats

I used to hate poems and most “literature,” even though I loved reading and stories. But by the time I was finishing my undergraduate program, I had finally come to the realization that perhaps, maybe, poetry might be more than gibberish arrangements of the English lexicon.

Since art, faith and culture gracefully co-mingle in practice and in the quest for beauty, truth and goodness, perhaps some poems might be apt for this blog, particularly for their enjoyment.

Without further ado, one of my current favorites, The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler 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.

Yeats (d. 1939) was Irish and Innisfree is an unihabitated island there that he spent summers on during his childhood. Yeats said he had inspiration once upon being reminded of that place to go there and live as Thoreau did in Walden in the U.S. (He didn’t actually do it though).

I like this poem because I have similar fantasies of living alone in nature like a monastic hermit. And I like the line “peace comes dropping slow,” because it reminds me of the honey which is mentioned in the first stanza.

Well, that’s all. Not an especially “deep, hidden meaning” here,  though I can be game for those too.

What do you think? Can poetry be fun? Is it always mind-mindbogglingly deep? Or perhaps always a load of blarney?