The Stolen Child
"The Stolen Child" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, published in 1889 in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems. Several critics praised the poem.[1]
Overview
The poem shows the early influence of Romantic literature and Pre-Raphaelite verse.
- Where dips the rocky highland
- Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
- There lies a leafy island
- Where flapping herons wake
- The drowsy water rats;
- There we've hid our faery vats,
- Full of berry
- And of reddest stolen cherries.
- Come away, O human child!
- To the waters and the wild
- With a faery, hand in hand.
- For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
- Where the wave of moonlight glosses
- The dim grey sands with light,
- Far off by furthest Rosses
- We foot it all the night,
- Weaving olden dances
- Mingling hands and mingling glances
- Till the moon has taken flight;
- To and fro we leap
- And chase the frothy bubbles,
- While the world is full of troubles
- And is anxious in its sleep.
- Come away, O human child!
- To the waters and the wild
- With a faery, hand in hand,
- For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
- Where the wandering water gushes
- From the hills above Glen-Car,
- In pools among the rushes
- That scarce could bathe a star,
- We seek for slumbering trout
- And whispering in their ears
- Give them unquiet dreams;
- Leaning softly out
- From ferns that drop their tears
- Over the young streams.
- Come away, O human child!
- To the waters and the wild
- With a faery, hand in hand,
- For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
- Away with us he's going,
- The solemn-eyed:
- He'll hear no more the lowing
- Of the calves on the warm hillside
- Or the kettle on the hob
- Sing peace into his breast,
- Or see the brown mice bob
- Round and round the oatmeal chest.
- For he comes, the human child,
- To the waters and the wild
- With a faery, hand in hand,
- For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
The poem was first published in the Irish Monthly in December 1886.
The Stolen Child Media
Glencar Waterfall, County Leitrim mentioned in the poem
References
- ↑ R.F. Foster 1998. W.B. Yeats: a Life. Oxford University Press, pages 56, 75-76. ISBN 0-19-288085-3
Other sources
- Richard J Finneran (ed) 1994. Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies XII, p91–92. ISBN 0-472-10614-7
- Terence Brown 2001. The Life of W.B. Yeats, pages 9, 19, 66. Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-22851-9