But there I was in remote and gusty western County Clare
Picking my way along the glaciated limestone pavement of the burren
Stepping over the vertical grykes, block to block, clint to clint
Remembering lines of escape and solitude from Yeats*
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
I’d felt the sense of self-sufficient hermitage, the greasy clay in my hands
Pulling and cutting wood into wattles in four-foot strips
Daubing the clay in my slimy hands, adding straw
Forming the inverted basket of a small cabin, a hat of a home.
Nine bean rows will I have there, A hive for the honeybee, and live alone in the bee-loud glade.
But, what glade could be loud with bees?
The burren’s deep cracks filled with turf and tiny, brave flowers
Looking for a place away from the men
Tired of the watching and the following and the accommodating
Just then dreaming of my own aloneness in a bean-and-honey paradise.
At last looping back to the family
Down through a long, grass-choked ravine, threading down one glade
And suddenly there were bees
Thousands of them, streaking with me, above me, alongside, past me
Humming, whirring, buzzing, so incredibly loud
Celestial bee-loudness like a great vibrating harp.
And me, the incredulous English major, American, alone,
Stock still in a bee-loud glade, no longer just words in a poem,
My ears blasted by Yeats’ Irish thunder.
burren: a limestone karst clint: slab of limestone pavement gryke: fissure
* You can hear William Butler Yeats himself read this at youtube.com/watch?v=hGoaQ433wnw
See also “Beneath Ireland”
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