Friday, January 5, 2018

What type of midnight noon and evening does the speaker expect to experience?

In this poem by W.B. Yeats, the speaker declares his intention to go to Innisfree and build for himself a "small cabin" from natural materials, "clay and wattles." It is clear that the speaker anticipates a solitary existence where he "shall have some peace."
In describing the days he anticipates during his time at Innisfree, "peace" is the word around which the speaker's thoughts revolve. Peace will come to him "dropping from the veils of the morning" down to where the cricket is singing in the grass. Midnight in this serene place will be "all a glimmer," noon "a purple glow" and evening "full of the linnet's wings." A linnet is a type of bird, part of the finch family and now sadly endangered; linnets are plentiful only in the most remote and peaceful of places, so the reference to this bird highlights the fact that the speaker expresses solitude both day and night in Innisfree. The "purple glow" and the glimmer at midnight suggest the reflection of the moon and stars in the lake's surface, again something that is visible only in the wildest depths of the country, where there is no light pollution to inhibit the glow of every star in the sky.
The sound of the lake water, the speaker says, haunts him "night and day," pulling him towards this future he anticipates.

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