The Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists

William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)



There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.

I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;

Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.

Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

58 sec read
64

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBA CDDC EBBE FBBF GBBG EHHX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,042
Words 192
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. more…

All William Butler Yeats poems | William Butler Yeats Books

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