Attempt a critical appreciation of Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

One of the reasons why this poem is so famous and has been
such an enduring success is the way in which it uses assonance and alliteration to
create haunting sound effects, resulting in a poem which has real verbal music. These
sound effects almost lull us as a lullaby would lull a child, helping us to imagine the
idyllic setting that is being described to us.

Note how
this operates in the following example of the poem:

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And I shall have some peace there, for peace
comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning
to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer,
and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's
wings.

There are lots of
examples of alliteration (the repetition of consonnant sounds) and assonance (repetition
of vowel sounds) in this stanza. Note the alliteration in "s," "p," "d," "m," and "n."
Likewise there is assonance in "slow" and "grow" and "midnight," "linnet," "glimmer" and
"wings." These are examples of how Yeats creates the word music that makes this poem so
excellent.

Note the way as well in which the last stanza
suggests that the speaker feels a mystical connection with nature that endures even in
spite of the intrusions of city life. He is always able to hear the "lake water
lappping" on the shore of Innisfree, in spite of the "pavements grey" of his
environment. This is something he hears in his "deep heart's core," and cannot be
ignored or drowned out by the urban sounds that oppress him so.