Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats and Arcadia

Pastorale ou Jeune berger dans un paysage, Francois Boucher

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
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.

The Setting of the Sun, 1752, Francois Boucher

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.

Et in Arcadia ego, 1637-38, Nicolas Poussin, Oil on Canvas, Louvre Museum, Paris, France

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.
                     
~ W.B. Yeats

Yeats, like most of us yearned for an Arcadia, a Innisfree of sorts.... Yet he knew, like the last part of his poem that we must stand on the roadway where the pavement is grey and dream in our heart of that Pastoral and Arcadia in our heart. Without dreamers like Poussin, Boucher, and Yeats all would be grey, but with them and with us we have rich colors, buttery brushstrokes, beautiful dreams, and art to lose ourselves in.... even if for a short time.

To all my dreamers, artists, poets, writers, and lovers of life - keep making life beautiful, A Girl Named Fred