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.
