Hearing in the deep heart's core
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 in the deep heart’s core.
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
This poem was in my readings this morning, and I have never been able to read it without remembering this recording of Yeats himself reading it. The lake isle of Innisfree was a place of escape for Yeats, and though he stood on the "roadway or on pavements grey," he could always hear the sounds and feel the peace of Innisfree in "his deep heart's core."
In this time of pandemic and racial unrest, what is in your "deep heart's core" that keeps "peace dropping slow?"