Question

Read the excerpt. From “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats 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 gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. What do the “roadway” and “pavements gray” in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” represent? the carefree and peaceful life that Innisfree offers him the grief the speaker feels when he is not with his family the dreariness of the speaker’s life away from Innisfree the joy the speaker feels that he can visit Innisfree in his heart

Answer 1

The dreariness of the speaker’s life away from Innisfree.

Step-by-step explanation:

The lines 'While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core' refer to a feeling of closeness to and remembrance of a place dear to the speaker’s heart. There is an implicit sense of removal, of physical distance, contrasted to an emotional proximity.

So we know it reflects his life away from the idyllic Innisfree. Futhermore, the general tone of the phrase, the depiction of the pavements' colour (rather a dull one), appear to suggest a certain general dreariness.