Dream of: 10 January 2004 (2) "Innisfree"

I was standing in a high school classroom. I still had four more years of school to go, but I was planning to quit. I was only 18 years old, but I already had a law degree. I didn't think I needed to continue going to school.

I walked over to my old friend, Steve Buckner, who was sitting at a desk and talking to a girl on the other side of him. He opened a book on his desk to a picture of a standing William Butler Yeats.

I told Buckner I intended to quit school. I explained that I could learn more on my own than going to school, and to demonstrate my point, I began reciting a poem by Yeats which I had learned on my own, "Innisfree."

I recited, "I shall arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, and a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made. Nine bean rows will I 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, falling 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 shall arise and go now, for always night and day, I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. Standing on the pavement, or on the sidewalk gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core."

Just as I finished, the teacher walked into the room. At first I thought there was no desk for me, but he showed me a desk and I sat down. I noticed some coins lying on the desk and I thought I would probably take them.

A 250-page history text book was lying on the desk. I looked through it. I thought I would read the entire book. I opened and began reading about the Middle Ages, about knights on horses going to different lands.