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 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.
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.
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.
Lake Isle of Inisfree, by
William Butler Yeats
Trouble is, it won't work. The glee of eating your home-produced beans all by yourself is a
lonely triumph. There will be midges biting
and the toilet paper will run out. The bees are dying out these days, too, and anyway you can’t
live on honey for ever. Time and weather will undermine the solitary cabin – in
short, the poet will soon miss the madness and convenience of city life. Indeed he
never left it, except in his nostalgic imagination.
In this holiday season, it is useful to remember that there is no earthly paradise. There is no escape within the world from the world we have made. There
is nowhere we can go that does not have a dark side - we carry it with us. The best that seclusion
can offer is a temporary respite; a defence from the challenge of other
people’s differences and demands, an attempt to protect our self-image, do
things our own way, and find a relative but disconnected peace on our own terms.
It takes more than a change of scenery to quiet the buzzing of doubt and self-loathing
that is the underside of the separate self; it takes a change of mind.
Conflict must be
resolved. It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere
else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be
escaped. It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the
reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded
it. For only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as
it disappears (W333).
Peace is not there,
wherever we think there may be. It is
already here. It is always with us, as present on the pavements grey as where
the cricket sings. Our images of favourite places at best reflect back to us
the love and peace that we truly are. At worst, we cherish the forms of things
for their own special sake, instead of what those forms remind us of; losing
ourselves in dreams.
But read the poem without confusing image with reality, and
then it says, like the Course in Workbook Lesson 182, I will be still an instant and go home. At any moment, especially
at any moment of weariness or hurt or upset, we can think, like the poet, ‘I
will arise and go now’: I will be still an instant. I will change my mind, forget
my grievances, drop my accusations, stop wallowing in my shame, and go back to
the stillness within. Now, on the roadway or wherever I outwardly seem to be,
whatever I seem to be outwardly doing, I can stop being driven by the noise in
my mind and listen only to the peace that always, night and day whispers in the
deep heart’s core.
