The Stolen Child

   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 cherries

   And of reddest stolen berrys.

   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.

   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