The Stolen Child

  "The Stolen Child"

  a poem by William Butler Yeats, published in 1889

 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 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.