The Lake Isle of Innisfree

This is one of my all-time favourite poems -'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' by the great W.B.Yeats.

"Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words." (Paul Engle)

William Butler Yeats (1865 –1939)

 Yeats's words transport me to his ideal place, Innisfree, in County Sligo, Ireland, so that I see, hear and feel it. It's as though I am standing there by that cabin of his dreams with the landscape around me. 

He also conveys the deep longing he feels when he is away from the place and in the city.  There, he is hemmed in by buildings, and swamped by the noise and bustle. But still, deep within his mind and soul is Innisfree, vivid and alive.

The sentiments of the poem resonate strongly with me as I too have my ideal place amid the fields and mountains, with lake water lapping, and peace and solitude.

We, each of us, have our own place that is special to us.

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 grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Here's the poem read by the man himself at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGoaQ433wnw

And here it is set to music by Mike Scott and The Waterboys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GMFJi7Z8Ow

I hope you enjoy The Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats in whichever format you choose to experience it 

James Joyce

Irish writer, James Joyce set many of his works in the city of Dublin but nature was never far away. His descriptions of nature are as vivid as his urban scenes. Her is one of my favourites.

James Joyce 

(2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

James Joyce was born on this day in 1882. A fellow Dubliner, he is one of my favourite writers since studying him at school. I didn't tackle the hefty Ulysses until a few years ago when I doggedly ploughed through it. It is hard work but worth the effort. On the other hand, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are short but don't be fooled. Though concise, their characters are vivid and complex. Joyce, as he does so well, presents us with real people,full of contradictions,confusions, and troubles that are all recognisably human. Though set in a Dublin before my time, he conjures up the unique  spirit of the place and of the timeless issues that face human beings.  Joyce takes the reader on a journey into a story but also into language. His characters are city dwellers but nature is never far away in his narrations. 

To celebrate Joyce's birthday, I offer you a slice of his beautiful writing.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Wintry churchyard, Cumbria

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

 (extract from Dubliners)

September 1913

 

 William Butler Yeats
 (Associated Press)

  No other reason for my choice of this poem than I love the poetry of WB Yeats, (his weaving of words, the rhythm and flow, his ability to create a sense of place and transport you there) and it is September.  I was introduced to Yeats's poetry at school in Dublin and he struck a chord deep inside the twelve year old me and to this day, I regularly feel the need to dip into his works. 

  

‘September 1913’  

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You’d cry, ‘Some woman’s yellow hair
Has maddened every mother’s son’:
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they’re dead and gone,
They’re with O’Leary in the grave. 

W B Yeats

About W B Yeats:     http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats

About the poem September 1913: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/romantic-ireland-yeats-and-the-irish-times-poetry-on-newsprint-1.1509856

Musical version of September 1913 by The Waterboys from their album 'An Appointment with Mr Yeats'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOG8J9DeEKo