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The Lake Isle of Innisfree

From Wikisource
The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1890)
by William Butler Yeats

Written in 1888 and published first in "The National Observer" newspaper in 1890 and then in book form in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892). Included in The Rose collection (1893). The name Innisfree is an anglicisation of the Irish Inis Fraoch, meaning "heather island".

7386The Lake Isle of Innisfree1890William Butler Yeats

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.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 84 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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