The Stolen Child
poem by Yeats
"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
changeThe 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.
References
change- ↑ R.F. Foster 1998. W.B. Yeats: a Life. Oxford University Press, pages 56, 75-76. ISBN 0-19-288085-3
Other sources
change- 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