The Stolen Child - W.B. Yeats
A Magical Call to Fairy Lands Beyond Mortal Sorrow
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 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,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.
W.B. Yeats’s “The Stolen Child” interlaces Irish folklore and lyrical enchantment, depicting faeries luring a child away from a world fraught with sorrow. The poem opens with vivid natural imagery: moonlit sands, whispered streams, and verdant islands. These descriptions highlight both Ireland’s rugged beauty and the allure of the supernatural. The refrain—“Come away, O human child!”—emphasizes the faeries’ seductive call, suggesting a release from the burdens of mortal life.
Each stanza contrasts the dreariness of human reality (“a world more full of weeping”) with the faeries’ promise of perpetual wonder. Yet, this promise is tinged with ambivalence. While the faeries’ land appears playful and filled with poetic beauty, it also separates the child from home comforts—a warm hearth, the sound of cattle lowing. In doing so, Yeats evokes both the tragic loss of innocence and the temptation to escape sorrow.
Written during Yeats’s early creative period, “The Stolen Child” reflects his deep fascination with Celtic mythology and the tension between modernity and ancient lore. For him, the faeries symbolize a timeless enchantment that Ireland risked losing to material change and English influence. The poem’s repeated refrain calls attention to how longing for mystery can both enchant and estrange.
Ultimately, “The Stolen Child” speaks to the universal desire to flee the harshness of life for a realm of imagination. While the poem’s magical images captivate us, they also remind us that such flights inevitably come with a price: abandoning the mortal world—complete with its joys and pains—for a dreamlike but distant land. This duality shapes the poem’s enduring appeal, capturing the human struggle between dwelling in life’s sorrows and yearning for sublime escape. In this way, Yeats uses the faery tradition as a vehicle for both celebration and lamentation, urging readers to cherish the imaginative impulses that lift us from despair, yet cautioning us not to lose ourselves entirely to illusions of another world.
Key points
1. Yeats intertwines Irish myth with a poignant sense of childhood and loss.
2. The faeries’ invitation symbolizes the tension between everyday sorrow and escapist enchantment.
3. Refrains of “Come away” emphasize the seductive yet potentially isolating power of fantasy.
4. The poem highlights Yeats’s early fascination with Celtic folklore as a source of cultural identity and poetic inspiration.