The Garden City of Karnataka: A Tribute to Yeats’ The Lake Isle of Innisfree & Bangalore

The Garden City of Karnataka

I will arise and go now, and go to Bangalore,
And a small lodging build there, of mortar and brick made;
A terrace of flowers, jasmine champa magnolia,
I will peacefully tend all day.

I shall calmly watch sun set, for watching makes me breathe slow,
Breathing minty moments of orange clouds and purple twilights;
There morning comes on sudden, and noon a white blister,
And the tranquility encircles.

I will arise and go now, for in my heart always
I hear rustling coconut leaves caressed by tropical breeze;
While I stand in snow shoes, and in my winter coat,
I hear them louder more I freeze.

I said I would do it.
I read my early morning post and in my staggering state I seem to have wanted to write a tribute to Bangalore (a city in India) in the style of W. B. Yeats’ The Lake Isle of Innisfree. You can read the original poem here.
Yeats’ poem was inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Innisfree is Inis Fraoigh (Heather Island), which is a small island in the west of Ireland. Yeats, an Irish poet, suddenly felt very homesick one day walking in London, as a water fountain in a shop-window reminded him of lake water. The Lake Isle of Innisfree was thus born.
My poem was inspired by Yeats and by my beautiful home many thousands of kilometres away. I dedicate this to one of my best friends from my teenhood in Bangalore and who now live farther away from the city than I do. You know who you are.