The Lake Isle of Innisfree

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is a lyric poem written by William Butler Yeats, a prominent Irish poet, essayist, and dramatist, who was known for his promotion of Irish culture and its political autonomy. The poem appeared early in Yeats’s career and demonstrates his concern with incorporating positive Irish images and mythology into his writing as part of the Celtic Revival movement of the late 19th century. In the poem, the speaker expresses their longing to escape the city and go to the island of Innisfree, which is located in Lough Gill, a lake in Ireland. Once there, they believe their tranquility will be restored. The poem, written in 1888, was first published in the National Observer in 1890. It then appeared in Yeats’s 1892 collection, The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics.

Yeats had a long career (1885-1938) and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” was one of Yeats’s most popular poems and remained so throughout his long life. During readings, he often chose this poem. While his style shifted and changed, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” remained an audience favorite, as it showed the beauty of nature and Irish history. The poem’s first two lines now appear on Irish passports and the entire poem has been recorded as a song in the 20th and 21st centuries, and it has also been quoted in popular films.

Poet Biography

William Butler Yeats was born on June 13, 1865, in Sandymount, Ireland. His parents were John Yeats, a well-known portrait painter, and Susan Mary Pollexfen Yeats, the daughter of a prominent merchant from Sligo, Ireland. Shortly after Yeats’s birth the family moved to County Sligo. Yeats’s formative years were spent there, and its landscape figured often in his work. Besides his father, Yeats also had three siblings who were all artistic. His brother was a painter, and his sisters would later run the Cuala Press (1908-1946) focusing on Irish literature and participating in the Arts and Crafts movement.

The family was Protestant, and sometimes resided in London, but Yeats did grow up believing in Ireland as a distinct place with a distinct culture from an early age. Toward the end of 1880, the family returned to Dublin where Yeats attended high school. At his nearby studio, John Yeats introduced his son to many artists and writers. At this time, Yeats began to write creatively. In his late teens, Yeats witnessed the political rise of Charles Stewart Parnell’s home rule movement, and Ireland’s swing toward nationalism, and became deeply involved in the quest for Irish identity.

In 1885, when his first published poems were met with criticism for being derivative of the British Romantics, he turned to Irish mythology and folklore to create a more unique voice. Later that year, he published a play in verse called The Island of Statues: An Arcadian Faery Tale in Two Acts that was serialized in Dublin University Review. That same year, Yeats developed a deepening interest in the study of mysticism. In 1886, he attended his first séance, and after returning to London in 1887 for work, he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This secret society met to study and practice occult Hermeticism, theosophy, and metaphysics and grew popular with Victorians of all classes.

In 1889, Yeats met Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, then 22. Yeats’s love for her was mostly one-sided, though the two remained in each other’s lives for many years. He continued to work on poetry and published The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems in 1889. A year later, in 1890, Yeats began regularly meeting with other poets to recite verse. The Rhymers’ Club included Ernest Dowson, Lord Alfred Douglas, Arthur Symons, John Gray, and sometimes Oscar Wilde, among others. This, along with his involvement in mysticism, kept Yeats intellectually occupied. He published The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics in 1892, which included several popular poems, including “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.”

After his marriage proposal to Maud was rejected, Yeats became involved with the married Olivia Shakespear in 1894. The couple ended their liaison in 1897 but remained friends until Olivia’s death in 1938. Another influential woman in Yeats’s life at the time was Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, an aristocrat who had converted to cultural nationalism and encouraged Yeats to do the same. Her home at Coole Park served as an important salon for those interested in the Irish Literary Revival. In 1897 and 1899, Yeats published two collections incorporating Irish themes: The Secret Rose and The Wind Among the Reeds. Also in 1899, Yeats, Lady Gregory, and Edward Martyn publicly declared their intention to establish a national theater for Ireland. Although their first venture collapsed financially in 1901, the founders regrouped to organize the Irish National Theatre. In 1904, Dublin’s Abbey Theatre opened its doors, notably staging the works of Irish playwrights such as Yeats, Gregory, Sean O’Casey, and John Millington Synge.

Yeats proposed to Maud again in 1899, 1900, and 1901 and was rejected each time. In 1903, she married military leader John MacBride, to Yeats’s dismay. After the birth of their son in Paris, Maud and MacBride’s relationship disintegrated, and John returned to Dublin. John joined a group that began to plan the uprising that would later become the Easter Rising of 1916 (John was later executed by the British government for his involvement). In 1908, Maud and Yeats consummated their relationship—but it didn’t create a permanent attachment and their friendship suffered.

In 1909, Yeats met the American poet Ezra Pound, who would serve as his personal secretary from 1913 to 1916 and become his friend. In 1914, Yeats also saw more of Georgie Hyde-Lees, Olivia Shakespear’s step-niece, when she joined the Golden Dawn. With these new influences, Yeats became more experimental with his writing. Until 1913, Yeats had written mostly about the mythic and legendary past of Ireland; however, between 1914 and 1916, especially after the Easter Rising, Yeats began to reconsider the nationalist revolutionary movement and his poetry became more political and current.

In 1916 and 1917, Yeats proposed to Maud for the last time, then her daughter. He was rejected by both. His third proposal was to Georgie Hyde-Lees, who accepted. They were married three weeks later on October 20, 1917, and stayed married until Yeats’s death, having a family of two children. The couple were both interested in spiritual communication and the occult. Georgie engaged in sessions of automatic writing to reach the spirit world, which Yeats recorded. These writings were later collected into A Vision (1925). During this period, Yeats also wrote The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) which met with great acclaim.

His political life was solidified in 1922 and 1923, when arguments regarding the partition of Northern Ireland led to an Irish Civil War. Yeats sided with the newly formed Irish Free State and was appointed to its Senate in December 1922. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he used to encourage cultural awareness and nationalistic pride. In 1928, he retired from the Senate due to ill-health, but published a collection called The Tower, which was praised for its poems responding to the current times of crisis. The Winding Stair appeared in 1929. His books in the 1930s included Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932), Full Moon in March (1935), and Dramatis Personae (1936).

Yeats died in France of heart failure on January 28, 1939, at the age of 73. His remains were sent to Ireland and buried in Drumcliffe Parish Church cemetery in County Sligo. He remains a well-regarded artist and important public figure.

Poem Text

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, William Butler. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” 1888. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The speaker decides that they will leave where they are and go to an island in Ireland called “Innisfree” (Line 1), which translates to Heather Island. On the island, which is uninhabited, they will construct a tiny hut of branches and mud. They will subsist on beans and honey from a hive. Here, they’ll be able to find solitude and tranquility, which seems to be a contrasting state to their current life. They will enjoy how a sense of calm will come over them like the mist comes over the lake. They will also take in the sounds of the “cricket[s]” (Line 6), the songbirds, and the lapping water. They’ll admire the way the stars are reflected in the lake at nighttime and how heather makes it purple mid-day. Breaking from this reflection, the speaker stresses they really will leave their current place. This is due to the fact that they can’t get the sound of the ripples on Innisfree’s “shore” (Line 10) out of their heart, even as they stand on the city streets and sidewalks. Their idyllic vision of Innisfree is always with them.