THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD
by: William Butler Yeats
(1865-1939)
- HE woods of Arcady are dead,
- And over is their antique joy;
- Of old the world on dreaming fed;
- Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
- Yet still she turns her restless head:
- But O, sick children of the world,
- Of all the many changing things
- In dreary dancing past us whirled,
- To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
- Words alone are certain good.
- Where are now the warring kings,
- Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
- Where are now the warring kings?
- An idle word is now their glory,
- By the stammering schoolboy said,
- Reading some entangled story:
- The kings of the old time are dead;
- The wandering earth herself may be
- Only a sudden flaming word,
- In clanging space a moment heard,
- Troubling the endless reverie.
-
- Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
- Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
- To hunger fiercely after truth,
- Lest all thy toiling only breeds
- New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
- Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
- No learning from the starry men,
- Who follow with the optic glass
- The whirling ways of stars that pass--
- Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
- No word of theirs--the cold star-bane
- Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
- And dead is all their human truth.
- Go gather by the humming sea
- Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,
- And to its lips thy story tell,
- And they thy comforters will be,
- Rewording in melodious guile
- Thy fretful words a little while,
- Till they shall singing fade in ruth
- And die a pearly brotherhood;
- For words alone are certain good:
- Sing, then, for this is also sooth.
-
- I must be gone: there is a grave
- Where daffodil and lily wave,
- And I would please the hapless faun,
- Buried under the sleepy ground,
- With mirthful songs before the dawn.
- His shouting days with mirth were crowned;
- And still I dream he treads the lawn,
- Walking ghostly in the dew,
- Pierced by my glad singing through,
- My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:
- But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
- For fair are poppies on the brow:
- Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
"The Song of the Happy Shepherd"
is reprinted from Crossways. W.B. Yeats. 1889. |
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POEMS BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |
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