To an Isle in the Water

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1889from Crossways16 lines

Shy one, shy one,Shy one of my heart,She moves in the firelightPensively apart.

She carries in the dishes,And lays them in a row.To an isle in the waterWith her would I go.

She carries in the candlesAnd lights the curtained room,Shy in the doorwayAnd shy in the gloom;

And shy as a rabbit,Helpful and shy.To an isle in the waterWith her would I fly.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

A shy young woman at her household tasks, and a lover's dream of escape.

The speaker watches a shy young woman moving quietly about a house in the firelight. She carries in the dishes and lays them in a row; she brings in the candles and lights the curtained room. Everything about her is "shy", a word the poem repeats again and again. Twice the speaker adds his own quiet wish: to go with her "To an isle in the water". It is a small, tender love song made from ordinary domestic moments.

Lines to remember

Shy one of my heart,

To an isle in the water

Line by line

Lines 1 to 4Shy one
The poem opens with a triple call, "Shy one, shy one, / Shy one of my heart", as tender as a lullaby. She moves "in the firelight / Pensively apart", at a little distance from everyone, lost in her own thoughts.
Lines 5 to 8The dishes
She carries in the dishes and lays them in a row, a plain, careful task. Then the speaker's wish breaks in: "To an isle in the water / With her would I go." The inverted word order makes it sound like an old song.
Lines 9 to 12The candles
Now she brings the candles and lights "the curtained room". She is "Shy in the doorway / And shy in the gloom", hovering at the edges of light, as quiet as the rooms she tends.
Lines 13 to 16The wish again
She is "shy as a rabbit, / Helpful and shy", a comparison both comic and affectionate. The refrain returns, changed in one word: this time he would not just "go" with her but "fly".

Themes

Shyness and love

The word "shy" appears again and again, and the speaker loves exactly this quality: her apartness, her quiet helpfulness, her hovering "in the doorway". He never speaks to her in the poem. His love is as shy as she is, kept to himself and to the song.

Home and escape

The poem is set indoors, among dishes, candles and firelight, yet the refrain dreams of "an isle in the water". The escape he imagines is not from her ordinary world but with her, taking that quiet life somewhere even more private. The small island is a dream of being alone together.

Context

The poem was first collected in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (London, January 1889), and Yeats later placed it among the early lyrics he called "Crossways". Its island refrain shares a dream with "The Indian to His Love" in the same group, and looks ahead to the more famous island of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree".

Form

Four quatrains of very short lines, mostly of two beats, rhymed on the second and fourth lines ("heart", "apart"; "row", "go"). The second and fourth stanzas end on the same refrain, changed from "go" to "fly". The clipped lines and constant repetition of "shy" give it the simple, hushed feel of a folk song.