The imagination of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) could conjure up disturbing images, as in his visionary The Second Coming, when “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

But in The Lake Isle of Innisfree he offers the most peaceful of pastoral scenes in rural Ireland. Totally memorable – and lovely to recite!

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

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 at the deep heart’s core.