William Butler Yeats wrote
The Lake Isle of Innisfree in 1895. He was in London, pavements all around, when he heard the sound of water lapping in a fountain and thought of his boyhood/ island/ the sea. Here is his poem. Here also is a link to Yeats himself reciting the poem:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15529 .
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.
Often I call upon this poem and say some lines and, hearing the words, I am calmed. This past two weeks I have been in two great cities, Chicago and Boston. There, amid great strength and beauty; still, Yeats's poem has wafted to me at times, clearly, with music, with magic.
