Poem by William Butler Yeats

The Dedication to a Book of Stories Selected from the Irish Novelists

  There was a green branch hung with many a bell
  When her own people ruled in wave-worn 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,
  For all who heard it dreamed a little while.

  Ah, Exiles wandering over many seas,
  Spinning at all times Eire's good to-morrow!
  Ah, worldwide Nation, always growing Sorrow!
  I also bear a bell branch full of ease.

  I tore it from green boughs winds tossed and hurled,
  Green boughs of tossing always, weary, weary!
  I tore it from the green boughs of old Eire,
  The willow of the many-sorrowed world.

  Ah, Exiles, wandering over many lands!
  My bell branch murmurs: the gay bells bring laughter,
  Leaping to shake a cobweb from the rafter;
  The sad bells bow the forehead on the hands.

  A honeyed ringing: under the new skies
  They bring you memories of old village faces,
  Cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places;
  And men who loved the cause that never dies.

1. The Pity of Love
2. The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
3. To Ireland in the Coming Times
4. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
5. The Ballad of Father Gilligan

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