“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” Manuscript

W. B. Yeats

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” Manuscript

1890

First published in The National Observer newspaper in 1890

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, ..." One of Yeats's best-known and most beloved poems, its earliest draft dates to December 1888, when Yeats saw a window display in the Strand in Central London that created a flash of memory of his childhood in Sligo, Ireland. The poem was immediately successful upon its publication, establishing Yeats as an important new voice at age twenty-five.