There midnight’s all a glimmer

W.B Yeats was my neighbour. Sadly, we never met but he has a dreamy lilac plaque commemorating his time spent in Primrose Hill. An Irish friend introduced me to his poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, and it’s beautiful. Knowing nothing about my neighbour, as is so often the case, I wanted to learn. A representative of Irish literature, he seemed to keep a mute on his nationalistic views until later in his life, shifting between phases of varying influences and passions and styles, like all amazing artists. What I found fascinating was his attraction to spiritualism. “If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book…The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write”.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B 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 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 in the deep heart’s core.