Poem - The Lake Isle of Innisfree Class 9 Worksheet English Chapter 1

Multiple Choice Questions

Q1: What does the poet hear night and day in the core of his heart?
(a) The sound of the lake water lapping against the shore of Innisfree.
(b) The cries of his children telling him to come back home.
(c) The cries of his countrymen to fight for his country
(d) The cries of birds and animals to come and live with them in the forest.
Ans: (a)

Q2: What beautiful sight will he get to see there?
(a) The glimmer of midnight stars.
(b) The linnets flying about in the evening.
(c) The purple glow of the noon.
(d) All the above.
Ans: (d) 

Q3: What does the poet hope to get there?
(a) Peace.
(b) Wealth.
(c) Friends.
(d) Name and fame.
Ans: (a)

Q4: Where does the poet want to go?
(a) To London.
(b) To Paris.
(c) To Innisfree.
(d) To Switzerland.
Ans: (c)

Q5: Name the poet of The Lake Isle of Innisfree’.
(a) James Kirkup.
(b) Robert Frost.
(c) W.B. Yeats.
(d) Phoebe Cary.
Ans: (c) 

Q6: Select the name of the poet of the poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’.
(a) Robert Frost
(b) Subramania Bharati
(c) Coates Kinney
(d) W.B. Yeats
Ans: (d)

Q7: What does the poet hear at Innisfree Island?
(a) the sound of raindrops
(b) the noise of the wind
(c) the lapping low sounds of the
(d) none of these three options lake water
Ans: (c) 

Q8: What does the poet see in Innisfree land?
(a) glimmering midnight
(b) purple noon
(c) the evening full of linnet’s wings
(d) all the options are correct
Ans: (d) 

Q9: Where will the poet have peace?
(a) in his home
(b) in heaven
(c) in Innisfree land
(d) in a lake
Ans: (c)

Q10: What thing will the poet not do on the Innisfree land?
(a) build a restaurant
(b) build a small cabin
(c) plant nine bean rows
(d) build a hive for the honeybee
Ans: (a)

Very Short Answer Questions

Q1: Read the following passages and answer the questions:
Ans: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
(i) What kind of garden does he want to have?
Ans: He wants to have a garden of beans with nine rows.

(ii) Why does he want to build a hive?
Ans: He wants to build a cabin of clay and wattle and a hive for honey-bees.

(iii) What is a glade?
Ans: A glade is an open space surrounded by woods.

(iv) What does he want to do there?
Ans: He wants to build a hive for honey bees.

Q2: What is the poet going to build in Innisfree and why?
Ans: The poet is going to build a cabin made of clay and wallet and a hive for honey-bee and a garden of nine bean in Innisfree. He wants to live there alone peacefully.

Q3: What kind of house does the poet want to build?
Ans: The poet wants to build a small house like a cabin made of clay and wattle and settle there.

Q4: How the poet wants to spend his time in Innisfree?
Ans: In Innisfree, the poet wants to spend his time listening to the songs of honey-bee and crickets.

Q5: Where was the poet at the time of penning the poem?
Ans: The poet was in the city or town at the time of penning the poem. At the end of the poem he stated that ‘While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey’. He has been dreaming of his childhood fascination to go and settle at an island in lake Innisfree and settle there. He cherished to build a cabin made of clay and wattle and a hive for the honey-bee. He wished to listen to the splash of water striking on the banks and hear the melodious songs of crickets. He longed to hear the loud buzz of the honey-bee in the glade. Though he is unable to go there but the splash of water and dream of being at Innisfree linger on in his heart.

Q6; Read the following passages and answer the questions:
Ans: I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
(i) Who is I in the first line?
Ans: ‘I’ is the speaker or the poet in the first line.

(ii) What’s his resolve?
Ans: His resolve is to go to Innisfree.

(iii) What is he going to build there?
Ans: He is going to build a cabin made of clay and wattles.

(iv) What are wattles?
Ans: Wattles are a fabrication of poles interwoven with slender branches, withes, or reeds and used especially formerly in buildings.

Q7: What is the intension of the poet?
Ans: The intension of the poet is to build a cabin there and stay alone peacefully.

Q8: Why does the poet want to live alone?
Ans: The poet wants to live alone because he doesn’t like the mad rush of the town and live a peaceful life on an isolated island with bees and crickets.

Q9: The poet in the last two lines presents a different picture. What is it?
Ans: The poet in the last two lines presents a different picture, when he tries to express that he is still in the town on a pavement next to the road and feels the splash of water of lake in his heart.

Q10: Why does the poet want to go to Innisfree and what he intends to do there?
Ans: The poet wants to go to Innisfree to spend his time in peace and tranquility of serene place which has a garden of nine bean. He also wants to build a cabin made of clay and wattle surrounded by the garden. He also wants to make a hive for honey-bee. He describes the place as beautiful with moonlight spreading silver splash and purple glow of the sun during noon. He intends to do live there in peace listening to the honey-bee and the songs of the crickets. He also wants to listen to splash of the water on the shores of the lake.

Short Answer Questions

Q1: Describe the Lake Isle of Innisfree as seen through the eyes of the poet.
Ans: The Lake Isle of Innisfree is an island that is incredibly peaceful. The island is also a place of great natural beauty. Yeats describes many different aspects of its appeal, from the various birds and insects to the striking light at different times of day. This is a landscape that has not been damaged or diminished by human interference.

Q2: What kind of life does the poet William Butler Yeats imagine in his poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”?
Ans: Yeats imagines Innisfree as an idyllic place of peace and solitude. He imagines living in a “small cabin” of “clay and wattles” where he will support himself on beans he plants and honey from his beehive, 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.

Q3: How does the poet describe the lake’s waves?
Ans: The poet says that the lake’s waves hit its shore and create a low sound. The sound, different from the sounds of the city, gives him great pleasure. He hears it in his heart and enjoys it. It also gives him solace and comfort as he realises he can visualise the island in his heart in the city.

Q4: Why does the speaker in the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” desire to spend his time alone in his cabin?
Ans: The speaker longs for a quiet place where he can live in peace and in harmony with nature. He envisions a simple life in a cottage surrounded by a garden instead of the dull “pavement” of the city. In his mind, he hears the gentle “lapping” of the water against its shore, the bee loud glade instead of the noise of city traffic. And he will be self-sufficient, growing his own food.

Q5: What words does the poet use to describe how calmness and tranquillity will come to him at Innsifree?
Ans: The poet declares that he will get up and go to Innisfree, where he will build a small cabin “of clay and wattles made.” There, he will have nine bean-rows and a beehive and live alone in the glade loud with the sound of bees. He says that he will have peace there, for peace drops from “the veils of morning to where the cricket sings.”

Long Answer Questions

Q1: How does Yeats create the atmosphere of the island and its sights and sounds in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”? Refer closely to the use of language in the first two stanzas.
Ans: The speaker begins by declaring that he will rise and go to Innisfree, a small island in the middle of Lough Gill, located in County Slogh. There the speaker will construct a cabin of mud and intertwined twigs or branches. He will lead a life of peace and quiet solitude, keeping busy with his garden of beans and a beehive.
The speaker reiterates that he will find calm in the dripping morning dew and singing crickets in the morning light, and this calm will continue throughout the day, when the sky glows purple in the noon and he hears the beating or finches’ wings in the evening, and finally, when the sky shimmers in the light of the stars at midnight.

Q2: Explain the contrast between the last four lines of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and the rest of the poem.
Ans: In the opening lines of the poem, the poet’s tone is dreamy and hopeful as the poet declares his intention of going to Innisfree. This is mainly achieved by the use of the future tense and the speaker’s desire to “arise and go now” to Innisfree. The speaker is sure he will live happily, will build his own home and grow and harvest his own food.

Innisfree takes on a magical character in the second stanza. The buzzing of the bees has, quietened and has been replaced by the gentler noise of crickets, the air is filled with birds in flight, and night and day have reversed their roles: “midnight’s all a glimmer and noon a purple glow.” It is also a place where peace is slow in coming but arrives nonetheless.

The reader is, however, aware that the speaker is not where he wishes to be, yet. The longing becomes more intense in the final stanza when the speaker says he hears the call to go to Innisfree “always night and day” and is even more determined to go to Innisfree. There is a sharp tone shift in the final two lines created by use of present tense “I stand” and “I hear”.

The soothing tone and mood is abruptly cut off and replaced by cold reality and the imagery of the street – to “roadway” and “pavements grey”. The speaker would rather not be where he is in that moment and his tone is sombre. But this mood does not last, as the speaker shifts to the present tense showing that though he stands on the “grey” pavement, he can access Innisfree in his own heart at any time.

Q3: Briefly describe the major theme of the poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, Nature vs City life.
Ans: A major theme in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, is nature versus the somber monotony of city life. Civilization, as represented by London, is monotonous and wearisome. On the other hand, Innisfree is magical with its He is not at peace, because peace is there only at Innisfree. Further, his use of “pavements gray” tells us that the urban environment in which he finds himself is exactly the opposite of the natural world he desires to return to.

On the other hand, Innisfree, which represents Nature, is magical in its appearance. The sounds one hears are the buzzing of bees, the flapping of the linnets’ wings, the singing of crickets and the lapping of the lake water aginst the shores. The sky is magical too. The dew drops from the sky in the morning light, the noon sky glows purple and the stars shimmer at midnight.

Q4: Why does the poet want to go Innisfree?
Ans: The speaker is standing on the pavement in London. He is surrounded by the sombre monotony of “grey” roadway and pavement and the sound of traffic. In that moment, perhaps fed up of the hubbub of the city life, the speaker decides to go to Innisfree. There, the speaker will construct a cabin of mud and intertwined twigs. In a life of quiet solitude, the speaker will keep busy with his garden of beans and a beehive. The speaker reiterates that he will find calm in the easy pace of dripping dew and singing crickets in the morning light, and this calm will continue throughout the day, the purple glow of the afternoon, and the beating of finches’ wings in the evening and shimmering of stars in the sky at midnight.

Q5: In W.B. Yeats’s poem, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” what indications does the speaker give of his present environment?
Ans: The first line of the poem makes it clear that the speaker is not at Innisfree. In this line, he expresses his wish to go there. Given his peaceful, idealistic description of Innisfree as a magical place that he would want to escape to, we might surmise that his current environment is quite different. If he longs so badly to escape to such a place, perhaps his current environment is bland, boring, oppressive.
He will have peace at Innisfree in the lap of Nature, implying he does not have peace where he is at present. He also brings out the sombre, monotony of the “grey” London pavements and the sound of traffic, by contrasting them with the sounds of bees, birds and crickets and the colours of the sky.