"The Song of the Happy Shepherd" is a poem by
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
.
It was first published under this title in his first book, ''
The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems
''The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems'' was the first collection of poems by W. B. Yeats. It was published in 1889.
In addition to the title poem, the last epic-scale poem that Yeats ever wrote, the book includes a number of short poems that ...
'', but in fact the same poem had appeared twice before: as an epilogue to Yeats' poem ''The Isle of Statues'', and again as an epilogue to his verse play ''
Mosada''. On the first of these occasions, the poem was said to be spoken by a
satyr
In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, :wikt:σάτυρος, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, :wikt:Σειληνός, σειληνός ), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears ...
carrying a
conch shell
Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snail, sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high Spire (mollusc), spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point a ...
.
See also
*
1889 in poetry
*
List of works by William Butler Yeats
This is a list of all works by Irish poet and dramatist W. B. (William Butler) Yeats (1865–1939), winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and a major figure in 20th-century literature. Works sometimes appear twice if parts of new editions ...
References
*
Mosada (
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
, 1886) — in its original publication, the play was followed by this lyric.
External links
The Song of the Happy Shepherd
Irish poems
Poetry by W. B. Yeats
{{poem-stub