Featured Poem: The Lake Isle of Innisfree

ReaderOnline contributor Siobhan Chapman has recently returned to teaching after a year's sabbatical to write a book. Judging by her selection of W.B. Yeats's 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' she is finding Liverpool's city streets rather unforgiving. She says she chose this poem because, as well as being a powerful evocation of a particular place, it will resonate with anyone who has ever found themselves on 'pavements gray':

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,
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 gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

[1893]

Here are links to audio versions of this poem from Librivox:

64kbps mp3

128kbps mp3

ogg vorbis