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.
- W. B. Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
One of my favorite poems by Yeats.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is very appealing to me at this moment -- except that I cannot "go home" again.
That's what they say...
ReplyDeleteHer House
ReplyDeleteCreamy quiet rooms
filled with light --
white and cream --
Sparsely furnished rooms
filled with light --
almost black
An island here and there --
polished wood --
darkly gleams.
Beeswax and bureau scarves --
echoes of lavender from Before --
captured in a drawer.
A solitary bee
for company.
A dainty Windsor chair --
a skeleton in black
against the light --
A churchyard framed in white --
crisp unspotted white.
A stillness so pure
one could hear
the waltzing whir
of moth wings --
Somewhere
in the attic.
~ FreeThinke
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
ReplyDeleteI summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
~ Shakespeare (Sonnet #30)
I absolutely love your poem, FT. I can see, smell, and feel that house.
ReplyDeleteI concur!
ReplyDeleteThank you, both.
ReplyDeleteJEN! It's so nice to see YOU. Been a long time. I miss your visits to my place.
These poems -- all three -- are about the sense of inner peace that comes with retreat from the hurly burly and endless aggravation of yammering worldliness. The mind and soul may be refreshed more easily in an atmosphere of stillness and even austerity enhanced by natural beauty.
Her House reflects my imaginary concept of the surroundings that sheltered Emily Dickinson. A subsequent visit to Amherst many years later proved my instinctive thoughts to be largely correct. A pleasantly eerie experience!
FT, it's good to see you, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the background history of the poems.
I think that as much as I yearn for less cluttered, more quiet, simple surroundings, I will inevitably be pulled back to the lively, slightly messy environment that results from a family with young kids. In fact, maybe it's that low-level chaos that makes me appreciate quiet solitude in the first place.
:-)