on also notable for its honesty and it seems to me that Yeats recants the derision with which he looked on the working classes in “Easter 1916”. Yeats was convinced he lived “where motley (was) worn”. Yeats recants his scornful opinion of Ireland’s nationalists as he declares “all changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born”. Yeats feels that even John McBride who had done (him) most bitter wrong” should be “numbered in the song”. According to R.F Forester, Yeats “marks a new level of achievement in this poem”. In my opinion, these two poems present me with a fresh and Yeatsian concern in relation to the early twentieth century. This sets Yeats apart from any other poet on my course.
I am also attracted to Yeats’ treatment of nature. In “Lake Isle of Inisfree” Yeats shares his longing for the calmness and tranquillity of his boyhood haunt Inisfree. This ambition is vividly drawn in the opening line a firm declaration of intent “I will arise and go now and go to Inisfree”. Yeats seems here to want an idyllic existence. However, it is Yeats fabulous use of sound that really appeals to me in this poem. Yeats crafts the hypnotic sound of Inisfree’s shoreline “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore”. This hypnotic feel is created by Yeats blending cacophonous alliterative and assonantal sounds. I just love how he relies heavily on the hexameter to give this line a stately and antiquated feel. Yeats appeals to all my senses in this poem. Whenever I read this poem I feel like I can hear the “cricket sing”, smell the “honey-bees” and see “the purple glow”. A similar reflection on nature can be found in “The Stare’s Nest by my window” where Yeats glances to the abundance in the natural word for a glimpse of continuity. The lack of unity in the world is vividly suggested in an almost Eliotian reliance on past participles: “The key is turned” “We are locked in...