The Lake Isle of Innisfree

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

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

Nine bean-rows I will 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

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

And evening full of the linnet’s wings

I will arise and go mow 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

Anne Frank (Part 2)

Anne Frank

Anne Frank, a German Jewish girl is well known for the diary she wrote while she was concealed from anti-Jewish persecution in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, during the World War II. Her diary describes with wisdom and humour the two arduous years she spent in seclusion before her tragic death at the age of fifteen years.

The Frank family left Germany in 1933 to escape the anti-Jewish movement led by Adolf Hitler. Her father Otto Frank took the family to Amsterdam where he established a small foo product business.

When Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Franks once again became subjected to anti-Semitic persecution. Therefore, Otto Frank arrange a home prison or hiding place by sealing off several rooms at the rear of his Amsterdam office building. The room Anne Frank was hidden on the first floor. It was a gloomy room where the entrance is shielded by a swinging bookcase. A very narrow staircase led to the upstairs. Anne spent three long years of the spring time of her life in this ‘home prison’.

In 1942, for her thirteenth birthday, Anne received a diary. She began to write about the bitter experiences of her life as well as her thoughts and expectations in this diary. She wrote about her fear and emotional agitation of her fellow people. And also mentioned about the little humour or pleasure she enjoyed in her isolation. She talks about her first love and also the beauty of life.

Later on, in 1944, Anne and others in her family were discovered by the Gestapo, Hitler’s Secret police. They were separated. Anne and her sister were sent to the Bergen Belson concentration camp. There, they lived only for a short time. Both of them died of ‘Typhus’.

Anne Frank became much recognised after her death. Her diary was published as a literary work in 1947. Its English translation, “Anne Frank The Diary of a young Girl” appeared in 1952. The story was made into a play and this play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. It was made into a film in 1959.

Anne Frank Huis (part 1)

Anne Frank Huis

Even now, after twice her lifetime of grief

And anger in the very place, whoever comes

To climb these narrow stairs, discovers how

The bookcase slides aside, then walks through

Shadow into sunlit rooms, can never help

But break her secrecy again just listening

Is a kind of guilt: the Westerkirk repeats

Itself outside, as if all time worked round

Towards her fear, and made each stroke

Die down on guarded streets imagine it

Three years of whispering and loneliness

And plotting, day by day, the Allied line

In Europe with a yellow chalk what hope

She had for ordinary love and interest

Survives her here, displayed about the bed

As pictures of her family;  some actors,

Fashions chosen by princess Elizabeth

And those who stoop to see them find

Not only patience missing its reward

But one enduring for chances

Like my own; to eave as simply

As I do, walk at ease

Up dusty tree-lined avenues, or watch

A silent barge come clear of bridges

Settling their reflections in the blue canal.

Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist and a biographer who was honoured with Poet Laureate. His poems are known for the insightful way in which they explore loss and desolation.

He was born in 1952 in Essex. His mother died when he was 17 years old. He studied in University college, Oxford and studied the poetry of Edward Thomas.

In 1975, he won the Newdigate prize for Oxford undergraduate poetry. Later, he worked as an English teacher. He taught in University of Hull. In 1989, he worked as the professor of Creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and later in the University of London.

Motion published a number of poetry which brought him much credit and reputation. Some of them are “The Pleasure Streamers”(1978), “Independence” (1981), “Natural Causes” (1987), “Salt Water” (1997). In 2005, he wrote the famous “Spring wedding” to celebrate the wedding, of prince of Wales. In 2003, he wrote another poem, a milestone in his poetry, “Regime change” to protest the invasion of Iraq.