a cabin there with a beehive outside and nine rows of beans.

His house is near gently lapping water, and all parts of the day on the isle are marked with beauty from morning to noon to night:

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.

Whether his lake isle refuge is real or not, the speaker derives feelings of happiness and repose by thinking of this Edenic setting, where all is lovely and harmonious. Today, we call such locations that we can imagine and "go to" when we are stressed our "happy place." The lake isle is the narrator's happy place.

In William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” he speaks of the solitary contentment and “peace” he feels when he thinks of the small lake island. On the island, he is able to leave behind the sights and sounds of the city, and retreat to the small, sod cabin surrounded by a garden. The sounds of the city are exchanged for the hum of bees.

His heartfelt emotions draw him to the Isle of Innisfree. In his mind he hears the water as it laps upon the shore and he is able to be with nature in his thoughts. He recalls how the days on the island pass with the sounds of the bees leading to those of the crickets and linnets at evening. The rising of the sun and its setting bring him a feeling of “peace.”

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

Yeats imagines Innisfree as an idyllic place of peace and solitude. He imagines a "small cabin" of "clay and wattles" where he will support himself on beans and honey from his bee hive, and he will "live alone in the bee-loud glade." There is also a sense that the "peace" he will find there is connected to its natural beauty, since peace "comes dropping slow, / Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings."

Of course, there is also the sense that this is perhaps not a real place, or that his imaginary conception of his life there is (knowingly) impractical or impossible. He hears the lapping water of the lake "always" while he is standing "on the roadway, or on pavements grey." In other words, Yeats's real world is a world of "pavements," a place where nature has been changed by man to make it easier to drive or conduct business. The contrast with the lake isle is stark: he feels a longing for this place of peace in his "heart's core," which could mean that he is longing for an ideal or feeling rather than an actual clay cabin.

The poem appeals to the senses to help you appreciate the peaceful nature of the place described.

In the beginning, the island is described and the speaker says he will build a house “of clay and wattles made.”  Wattles are sticks, supports, or poles.  You can picture the little house.  He also appeals to the sense sight by describing the “nine bean-row” and the bee hive.

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

A brief summary of this poem is that the speaker is yearning for a place of escape.  His "happy place" as many people would call it...it is in stark contrast to where he actually is...a street surrounded by gray pavement and hard silence in the city.

No, his place of escape is quiet but not silent.  There is a cabin, and images of soft, soothing water.  There will be "nine beans rows" in his garden and it is peaceful there.  The surroundings of his place of escape are natural and soothing...not manmade and harsh.  His place of escape does not cause stress like the city where he is in the last few lines of the poem.

Check out the link to more info on this poem here at Enotes.  Good Luck in your studies!

This poem is about a man, overwhelmed with urban life, who dreams of going back to nature in order to find some peace.  The man will build a small cabin there (line 2) and grow some beans (line 4).  He shall live alone (line 6) and "shall have some peace there" (line 7).  The sounds and sights of nature (second stanza) will be a comfort to him in comparison to the harsh pavement of the city (third stanza).

This poem was written at the end of the 19th century, when cities were growing quickly and nature was being abandoned for progress.  The poem emphasizes the ability of nature to restore the human spirit.  The poet has not literally gone to Innisfree, however.  In the end, although he hears the "water lapping with low sounds by the/shore", he is actually standing "on the roadway."  The contrast always readers to better understand the importance of nature, because the speaker is imagining it with rich detail even though he is far away from it.

The significance of the title of this poem lies in the way that it captures and inspires the imagination, allowing the reader to summon up an image of pastoral beauty which stands in direct contrast to "the roadway" and "the pavements grey" referred to in the last stanza. There is a sense too in which the word "Innisfree" suggests freedom and a lack of restrictions, which clearly fits into the theme of the poem as a speaker imagines a location where he can be restored by the power of nature against the corrupting influence of modern materialistic society.

In terms of developing this contrast there is too a significance with the fact that this imagined place of natural beauty is an island in the middle of the lake. It is, therefore, incredibly separate from the world that the speaker is fleeing from, and the fact that it is separated by water seems to emphasise that separation further. The importance of the water is focused on in the final stanza, where the sound of the "lake water lapping" is what the speaker thinks about to keep his heart pure in the middle of the materialistic city where he lives and works:

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 grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Note the alliteration in "lake water lapping with low sounds," which also has something of an onomatopoeic effect in creating the sound of the lake water as it laps against the shore. The title is therefore important in creating an image of this place of natural beauty and the antidote that it represents to the city life and materialistic society that the speaker finds so oppressive.

Well, there are plenty of meanings that this beautiful and excellent poem could be argued to be trying to convey. People have variously argued that this poem is about the beauty of transcendent nature, the simplicity of living or the power of the imagination. I actually think, if we examine the life of the poet who wrote this poem, we can argue that the poem is about the desire to return to a simpler form of nostalgic existence.

Yeats himself possessed this characteristic in the form of wanting to go back to Innisfree, which is a real small island in county Sligo that he used to go to for holidays as a child. This poem was created when Yeats was based in London and walking along Fleet street, which is an incredibly busy and hectic section of this major capital city. As he was walking along, he suddenly related the sound of the fountain to the sound that the water in Sligo lake made. Note how this is refered to in the final stanza of the poem:

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 grey,

I heart it in the deep heart's core.

We see here the central opposition that drives the poem related to the theme of returning to a simpler life. The "pavements grey" and the "roadway" are compared to the "lake water lapping," and it is most definitely the latter that sustains the poem in the "deep heart's core." This poem is above all about the desire to escape the busy present and return to a childlike state of existence where everything is much simpler.

Even if the reader doesn't know that the Lake Isle of Innisfree is an uninhabited island that lies within a large lake in County Sligo, Ireland, he or she can easily imagine what it is like from the descriptions William Butler Yeats gives in the poem. The island is a peaceful place full of lovely sights and relaxing sounds.

In the morning, the island is shrouded in mist, as the moisture from the lake and thick vegetation hangs in the air. By noon, the air has cleared, and the purple flowers that grow wild along the shore reflect on the water, making a "purple glow." Trees and grassy areas make a pleasant home for the birds and insects that populate the isle. After the sun sets and the moon and stars come out, they cast glimmering reflections upon the glassy surface of the lake.

Birds, bees, and crickets perform a quiet symphony, keeping time with the lapping of waves against the shoreline. Buzzing and chirps fill the air, and at twilight, it becomes quiet enough to hear the flutter of the birds' wings as they flit across the island.

Without the sounds of the city—people, traffic, and commerce—the island is a relaxing getaway. If one were to live there, the hustle and bustle of daily life would be abandoned for rest, relaxation, and gentle pleasures such as gardening and tending bees. One might feel isolated, but someone tired of city life would welcome the island's calm serenity as it settled into his very core.

When Yeats wrote "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" he was very much under the influence of Thoreau. As with the author of Walden, Yeats found the ideal of leading a simple life close to nature most appealing. This life of isolated rural bliss represents a haven of peace, far away from the madding crowds of the city. Even in the thick of the heaving throng, this Arcadian idyll still stirs the blood, retaining its hold upon the poet's imagination:

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Yeats's reference to "the pavements grey" is instructive here. City life is colorless and drab, but the Lake Isle of Innisfree offers an escape into a glorious world of color and great natural beauty. There the noon has a "purple glow," purple being a color traditionally associated with royalty. Here Yeats is emphasizing the majesty of the sun, a characteristic it shares with all of nature. The natural world is a kingdom of peace, and here Yeats will be a servant, leading a humble life of self-reliant simplicity. For a fiercely individual spirit bored and disillusioned by life in the modern city, this presents an attractive alternative indeed.

Yeats creates such peaceful imagery in this poem. It is calm, still, and serene. A little cabin sits isolated, surrounded by nature. I especially love the imagery of the early morning, when "peace comes dropping slow" out of the early-morning fog that sits over the lake. I live near a lake, and I know well the thick, soupy early-morning fog that hangs so heavily over the water that it is difficult to see through it. If there were no cars or other distractions, this fog would serve as a blanket over nature each morning, waking the lakefront scene from a night of slumber without the harsh glare of early light. The "cricket sings" in the background of this remote and rural scene as water laps the shoreline.

Yearning for peace in the company of nature is the most powerful thought in the poem.

The poet is a man of city. What troubles him in the city is not specified. However, it’s understood that the poet wants to escape from the drab urban setting to a pristine world of nature.

The poem takes up the common Romantic theme of return to nature. The period around 1888, when this poem was composed, saw rapid industrialization and urbanization all over England and Europe. It resulted in man's distancing away from the idyllic natural world.

The poet desires to transcend all the worries that saddle and depress him in the city. Nature seems to be the only refuge that could guarantee him the solace he’s seeking.

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.

For the upsetting urban environment, the poet turns to Innisfree, a small island at Lough Gill in Sligo County. It had been Yeats’ childhood haven. He would frequently visit the place with his family and enjoy a lot.

So, we see nostalgia is another significant feeling expressed in the poem. Innisfree is a symbol for perfect idyllic setting, where the poet is sure to discover internal peace.

Besides, the strong dislike for modern settlement is another very important feeling expressed in the poem. The description of his imagined cabin suggests his distaste for modern lifestyle.

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

The cabin that he would set up would be made of "clay and wattles," both of which are naturally available. There’s no mention of anything that’s factory-made.

The only image borrowed from the city is that of “roadway” and “pavements,” and interestingly, they look “grey.” The choice of color speaks amply about the poet’s opinion about urban lifestyle.

So, we see that the poet wants to run away from the stifling city life and seclude himself in the soothing world of nature.

In his autobiography, Yeats wrote of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree": 

I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree . . . and when walking through Fleet Street [in London] very homesick I heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop-window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. From the sudden remembrance came my poem Innisfree, my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music. 

In this poem, the speaker/Yeats longs to live in the simplicity of nature, with no extraneous distractions of city life or the superfluous habits, customs, and daily routines of an increasingly fast-paced, modern world. (Consider parallels with today's postmodern world; Yeats wrote this poem in the late 19th century.) Yeats indirectly invokes Thoreau in the first stanza when he says that he wishes to build a small cabin in the woods and live alone. Both authors recognized the allure of a simple life in nature, away from civilization. In "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For, from Thoreau's Walden, he writes: 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. 

Like Thoreau, the speaker of this poem wants to experience the "essential facts of life," life itself, and this is illustrated in the second stanza where the speaker looks to soak in the basic sights and sounds of nature. 

Other than the appeal of getting away from the business of modern life (and into the simplicity of nature), the poem is appealing because it offers a mental (and potentially a physical) escape. The speaker is only dreaming of "getting away from it all." He repeats as if encouraging himself to actually do it, "I will arise and go now." Even if he never goes, he will at least have the mental escape. This is the saving grace; even if he can not get out of the city, he can imagine the escape as he can will himself to hear the lake water lapping even while standing on the pavement in the city: 

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core. 

There is another appeal/implication that one can never go back to the past place of nostalgia and youth, but through imagination and reflection, one can always have the mental escape and memory of another time and place. 

Although it is correct to classify "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" as an "escape" poem, there are several aspects that distinguish it from many other poems of its genre.

For one, the life that Yeats envisions for himself on the isle of Inisfree is not a fantasy; it is nothing like, for example, Coleridge's famous Xanadu.  All that Yeats hopes to find on Inisfree is a simple cabin, some rows of beans, a bee-hive, and the sounds of nature: nothing exotic or fantastical.

Another interesting aspect to Yeats's poem is that he says very little about the life from which he seeks to escape.  Although Yeats describes the drab scene of standing "on the roadway, or on the pavements grey," there are no angry complaints about life as it is.