Inniskeen Road: July Evening
Inniskeen Road: July Evening - meaning Summary
Rural Sovereignty in Evening
Kavanagh’s poem sketches a July evening in his native Inniskeen where a rural dance and passing bicycles set a quiet scene. The speaker contrasts communal pleasures with his solitary imaginative life, claiming intimate ownership of a mile of road and its features. The poem explores how a poet’s inner authority and loneliness coexist with ordinary village pleasures, turning a simple landscape into a private realm of feeling and thought.
Read Complete AnalysesThe bicycles go by in twos and threes - There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn to-night, And there's the half-talk code of mysteries And the wink-and-elbow language of delight. Half-past eight and there is not a spot Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown That might turn out a man or woman, not A footfall tapping secrecies of stone. I have what every poet hates in spite Of all the solemn talk of contemplation. Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight Of being king and government and nation. A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.
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