The Stolen Child - A poem by William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats - The Stolen Child

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 berries
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 to waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to 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 be comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
from a world more full of weeping than you.

Added: on August 17th, 2007 at 11:38 AM | Viewed: 8854 times | Comments (15)

The Stolen Child - Comments and Information
Poet: William Butler Yeats Poem: The Stolen Child Volume: Crossways Year: Published/Written in 1889 Poem of the Day on: Aug 23 2003 Comment 15 of 15, added on July 13th, 2009 at 3:37 AM. To me this poem is almost Keatsean. just an in Ode to the Nightingale Keats wanted to escape from the world of pain and sorrow in to the magical wonderland of the bird similarly the fairies in Yeast's poem want to take the child away from this land of "fever and fret". What, according to me, is remarkable in The Stolen Child and also marks a departure from Keats's poem is that the fairies also speak about the sorrows that the child will face once he leaves the mortal world. while, for keats the coming back to the world is not a happy experience, Yeats focuses on the fact that it is good to make an escape to a fairy land but earthly bindings cannot be totally negated. Sriparna Dutta from India Comment 14 of 15, added on June 9th, 2009 at 4:27 PM. This poem, I have noticed is so different in it's meaning for everone who reads it, depending mostly on their own life experiences. It seems to me that since the faeries are the ones speaking in the poem, it is not they who wish to steal the child but it is they who view the child as stolen. The Faeries for me, represent the thing that calls to each of us at night when we are quiet which knows that there must be something better in this world than the dissapointing reality of suffering and hardships that we have come to accept as inevitable. The small pleasures we find in the "human" world (as mentioned in the last stanza) serve only to lull us into complacency and in order to find this better place, we know in our hearts that it may be necessary to abandon them. Whether the poem ends in suicide or simply a new mindset is something my friends and I have been mulling over for a long, long time. There has also been a suggestion that the faerie may actually have something to do with the use of absinthe and it's hallucinagenic properties (I'm not inclined to agree with this however). As I said, this poem is very susceptible to interpretation based on ones own experiences but I really feel as though Yeats is using the faerie mythology from his own childhood to put a name and face to the things within our own selves that want constantly to lure us away from reality and toward a more ideal life. Melissa from United States Comment 13 of 15, added on August 17th, 2007 at 11:38 AM. There are four typos in the last lines. Come away, O human child! To to [ the ] waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For to [ 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 be [ he ] comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, from a world more full of weeping than you. [no period] [ can understand ] Jock from United States More Comments >> Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, The Stolen Child, has received 15 comments. Click here to read them, and perhaps post a comment of your own. Of course you can also always discuss poems by William Butler Yeats with others on the Poetry Connection poetry forum!

Poem Info
The Stolen Child Volume: Crossways Year: Published/Written in 1889 Last read: 2009-11-07 11:30:36 Poem of the Day on: Aug 23 2003 Viewed 8854 times. Added on August 17th, 2007 at 11:38 AM.

Yeats Info
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