The Stolen Child Poem by William Butler Yeats

The Stolen Child

Rating: 4.8


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 berrys
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 gray 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 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 dropp 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.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Mary Ali 13 April 2006

What can I say except that it amazing, it really make me feel grieve over that child. It make me see him dying. Yeats indeed is a great poet.

2 2 Reply
Mizzy ........ 27 August 2016

Love the poem and The Waterboys sung version.

2 0 Reply
Merna Ibrahim 19 May 2010

Really i can't say anything except' William Bulter is an artist and a talented poet! ' And the song of Loreena Mckennitt is brilliant too! ! This poem is so true and impressing.

7 0 Reply
Özge Mete 16 January 2010

Inspiring and reflecting poem.It is reflecting because it gives the sense of our world is suffering and I think this image is given via human child, all the people in the world

3 1 Reply
Daniel P Carroll 09 August 2009

Typo line 11... Should read 'With a faery... The Waterboys do a good cover too.

0 4 Reply
Rebekah Gamble 04 August 2008

This really is a true beauty. And, if anyone's interested, Loreena McKennitt did a beautiful musical version of it (check it out on YouTube) .

3 2 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

County Dublin / Ireland
Close
Error Success