"The Song of the Happy Shepherd" is a poem byWilliam Butler Yeats.
It was first published under this title in his first book,The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, but in fact the same poem had appeared twice before: as an epilogue to Yeats' poemThe Isle of Statues, and again as an epilogue to his verse playMosada. On the first of these occasions, the poem was said to be spoken by asatyr carrying aconch shell.
In the poem, the shepherd mourns the death of the oldpastoral world and rejects modernscience andmaterialism, arguing instead that "Words alone are certain good". However, the shepherd's own arguments cast doubt on his viewpoint. He describes a shell (representingpoetry) as offering only brief comfort and "guile". He also announces a plan to revive afaun with his singing, but compares his own plan to a dream.[1]
