A Poem by W.B. Yeats. The presentation clearly describes the poem in an easy language, one can memorize easily.

1. A Poem by: W.B. Yeats
A PowerPoint Presentation by: Mrinal Ghosh, PGT (English)

2.  The poem, The Lake Isle of
Innisfree is a twelve-line
poem composed of three
quatrains written by William
Butler Yeats in 1888 and was
first published in the National
Observer in 1890.

3.  Innisfree is an uninhabited island in Ireland.

4.  The poet declares that he will arise and go to Innisfree.
 There he will build
a small cabin.
 The Cabin will be
made of clay and
wattles.

5.  There he will have nine bean-rows and a bee hive.
 He will live alone in the glade loud with the buzzing
bees.

6.  He will have peace there.
 Peace, he believes, drops from the veils of morning to
where the cricket sings.

7.  Midnight, there is a glimmer.
 The noon is a purple glow.

8.  The evening is full of linnet’s wings.

9.  The poet declares again that he will arise and go there
for, there he always hears the lake water lapping by the
shore.
 He stands in the city but he hears the sound from the
core of his heart.

10. Substance of the poem:
The poet wants to build a small cabin at Innisfree. He will build it
with natural materials. He will leave there alone. He will find
peace on the lake. There, peace drops from the morning and the
beautiful midnight. The poet needs just a garden and a beehive
for sustenance. He determines to leave immediately because
even when he stands on a road or a city pavement, he hears the
lapping of the lake waters in his heart.

11. Central Idea of the poem:
The poem is a longing for peace and greenery and all
that is natural. The central idea of the poem is to
showcase the longing one feels for some quiet and
alone time after living in a crowded, congested place
like a city.

12. W B Yeats captures the longing for home and peace in
this poem quite beautifully. Home, because Yeats
spent his childhood there in the County Sligo, to
which Innisfree belongs to. In fact, one can say this
poem is a reflection of Keat’s desire itself. At the time
of its creation, Keat was in a city, a bustling, crowded
city and his innermost desire to go to his home and to
peace came out bursting in the form of this poem.

13.  Poetic Devices in The Lake Isle of Innisfree
 Imagery: There is a fair amount of imagery in this poem. We can behold that small cabin, those nine rows of bens,
that buzzing hive of bees, the slowly dawning sky, the peaceful crickets’ song, the shimmery glimmer midnight, the
purple sky in the noon and finally the beating of the small linnet birds’ wings.
 Stanza: The poem is written in three stanzas of four lines each.
 Rhyme and Rhythm: Every couple alternate lines have their last words rhyming with each other. This is observed in
all three stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB. There is also an internal rhyme in the third line of the third stanza.
‘Roadway’ and ‘grey’; both rhyme with each other.
 Repetition: There is slight repetition in the poem. The first line of first stanza and the first line of third stanza start
the same way with the sentence, “I will arise and go now”.
 Alliteration: There is alliteration, repeating of the same consonant sounds, in line 2 of stanza 3: lake water lapping
with low sounds…
 Metaphor: There are a couple of metaphors in this poem. The first one occurs in line 2 of stanza 2. ‘Veils of morning’
might refer to the fog or dew one often experiences in ‘green’ places. And the last line of the poem is a metaphor too. It
means to say that the speaker of the poem deeply desires it.
