The Song of the Happy Shepherd

By William Butler Yeats

The 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, 
Rewarding 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.

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My 5 minute amateur analysis

So, what’s he getting at in all this? Well, this was published in his first book of poetry so it looks like a declaration of intent. He’s saying that the old style of poetry needs a revamp. It’s also important to note that the age in which this was written was the industrial revolution era, so very grey, stark and the way people found out about the world was through the dull medium of the printed newspaper.

He talks about dreaming, but not really the sleeping dreaming, but the need for us to imagine how things might be. Not in a technical or mechanical way but in the way that imagination does, freely and without constraint.

So, what I read in this is Yeats telling the reader to find truth and happiness in simplicity. The shepherd is happy because he’s remembering the past and when we think about the past, we have a tendency to omit the bad parts unconsciously so the past seems better than it might truly have been.

So, it’s an ode to a more romantic way of seeing the world, your world, as you want it to be. Not as it is, but as you imagine it to be.