The Stolen Child
by: WB 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 the 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.
I was taking a break, and watching an old episode of one of my favourite shows. An episode, mind you, that I've seen a dozen times, but apparently I'm too bloody thick to get things until the unlucky thirteen.
There's a bit of a poem spoken at the end, and truly through the whole episode, that I missed, only thinking it was a lure for the child that is the focal point of the episode.
I'm a bit of a prat, have I told you that?
It's a poem by Yeats, which I felt the need to look up in full after catching it (finally). Reading it a couple of times, all thoughts of my hellish novel idea have flown right out the bleeding window. Instead, I want to write this.
What "this" is is still in the simmering stage, but isn't it lovely? The imagery that I'll never be able to duplicate, and the concept of a child being taken to another world, a "better" one?
Damn you, Yeats. Damn you to hell.
Okay, so I'm a vet.
