The Stolen Child

This is one of my favorite poems by William Butler Yeats. As a child, I always felt out of place. I felt like I should’ve been stolen away and replaced by a changeling. And then, perhaps, I might find some solace in the Faerie Kingdom. Sometimes I’d wonder if it was me who was the changeling and that some other kid was off in wonderland. When you read this poem, what do you think the child’s new life among the Faerie Folk will be like? What do you think his old life among his family was like?

-Kev

The Stolen Child
Poem lyrics of The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats.

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 the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to world’s morefully 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,
from a world more full of weeping than you can understand.

Now you can see why the Faeries swapped me for a real kid, eh?

-Zebraman

Comments

  1. Okay. Uh…again in English, please. It’s pretty, but I have no idea what it said.

  2. oh, sorry, that was me posting. It was still on mom’s. so that post… up there… that’s mine.
    heh-heh

  3. Yeah … I was wondering when I had posted that. I mean, I don’t *recall* taking any hallucinatory medications, but ya never know.

  4. Do you really need drugs to hallucinate? (grin)

    -Kev

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