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
then you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sand with light,
Far off by the furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and minglings 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
then you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In poole among the rushes
That scarce can 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
then you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more 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
then he can understand.

Back to Faeries