The Lake Isle of Innisfree

[bobov (imported)]

I'm adding this poem here just because it's beautiful and I love it.

William Butler Yeats. 1865–1939

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 gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

[An Onymus (imported)]

Reminds me of the guy who built his own castle, by himself, in Florida, over a number of years. I think it was built from coral or something like that.

[bobov (imported)]

The poem says that solitude and closeness to nature slowly brings peace to those wounded in life. It's about openness and letting go of "civilized" things, not defensiveness and castle-building.

[Blaise (imported)]

Thank you.

[jane_says (imported)]

An Onymous, I know the guy and the house and guy you're talking about. They said he built it for love of his woman who died young. His place is now a tourist attraction.

And bobov, that poem reminds me of "Thanatopsis" and my eleventh-grade English teacher who first gave me a copy of it. I was in love with him.

[bobov (imported)]

Thanks for sending me back to Thanatopsis. I hadn't read it since high school. It's still moving. I suspect I'm less lovable than your old teacher, but we share the same taste in literature. I hope you find your own Lake Isle. I'm still seeking mine.

[Blaise (imported)]

My father loved the poem "Thanatopsis".

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 75

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 80

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

I confess that it never meant much to me. Life more than death seems the actual curse.

[bobov (imported)]

Sorry, I've got to ask. "Unfaltering trust" in what? How is a "quarry-slave" different from a regular slave? And what's "mysterious?" Our lives are mysterious. Death is the long-awaited arrival of certainty. I've been waiting to die for a long time now. I've felt gravity grow stronger as hope grows weaker. One day I'll fall into a deep pool and drown in the dark waters and be forgotten. That I'm still teased by a flicker of hope is the great joke. Rest in peace. Yeats was looking for a taste of death while still alive. That's what they call "peace." Chekhov was a writer who knew what living death means. Read or see his play "Uncle Vanya" to learn. Well, cheerio!

[bobov (imported)]

Thank you all. Thank you. Castration is just the first step. Soon, other things are gone. Then it's too late for anything but "peace."

[Blaise (imported)]

By now, I expected to be dead. Living with old age is a surprise.Of course, mortality is simply our major limit. Mortality makes us a definition. If someone decides to open himself to life and death by simply accepting that condition, who am I to criticism him?

For myself, the notion of living forever sounds like an awful idea. I do not want that fate.