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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  864. The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Butler Yeats. b. 1865

864. The Lake Isle of Innisfree

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,         5
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;  10
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, 
  I hear it in the deep heart’s core.