Summary and theme of The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats William Butler Yeats

 The Lake Isle of Innisfree

by W.B. Yeats

William 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 moing 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.

 Summary:   This poem is about a man who dreams of going back to nature with a view to finding some peace. The man will build a small cabin there. He’ll have a little bean garden and a honeybee hive. He wants to live alone in peace with nature and the slow pace of country living sounds and with sparkle and violet blaze. In the last stanza, the man again states and explains that every night he hears the water lapping sound of the lake by the shore. Even though he lives in an urban place with roads and pavements, he can hear the rural sounds of the Lake Isle of Innisfree.