Cabin Country: The poetry of cabin life

In 1955, my sister Rita and I had this cabin built on Lake Augusta near Annandale, Minn., which we named Innisfree. Sometime friends of Irish ancestry asked, "Why do you call it Innisfree when none of you are Irish?" We would show them a copy of the poem "Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats and I would tell them how this name was chosen:

One summer day when I was shopping at a center in St Paul, someone was reading poetry on a loud speaker, and as I was eating my apple pie, I heard the words: "I must arise and go now, and go to Innisfree." The poem continues: "I shall have some peace there for peace comes dropping slow …"

Later, my brothers and friends were seated on the porch at the cabin one evening, discussing how wonderful it was to be free of the hurly-burly of the city. They began to discuss what would be a good name for the cabin. I knew I had the answer. I took the poem to their table on the porch and explained that this poem exemplified what made our cabin so special. I asked my brother George to read it aloud, which he did. At the conclusion there was a moment of silence. And then everyone agreed that Innisfree would be the name.

For many years we shared the cabin with our four brothers and four other sisters and their children.

Here is the poem:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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;

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 gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.