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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

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.