Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Glencar Lake and Ben Bulben, County Sligo, Ireland. Photo from here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! As I've done in the past, I'm going to celebrate today by sharing with you a poem by my favourite poet, W.B. Yeats. The Stolen Child is set in county Sligo, Ireland where Yeats spent his childhood and where I studied his poetry one summer many years ago. 

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 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. 

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, 

For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.