The Stolen Child Analysis

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 to waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to 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 be comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
from a world more full of weeping than you.

.: :.

I should add to my above statement regarding Yeats' "The Stolen Child". In addition to what I said, it should also be kept in mind that parents in Ireland would often claim that their child was now a "changeling" when the child acted differently than usual. This could be a rationalization for disorders such as Asperger's Syndrome (which most people believe Yeats to have been a victim of). Thus, pretending that your child was actually not your child and was, rather, a fae of some sort would serve as a good remedy for parents who were not clear as to why their childs behavior was "abnormal".
Stefany DeVincentis, LMT

| Posted on 2009-10-31 | by a guest

.: :.

I think this piece represents his childhood. He is describing the places of Ireland in which he grew up in. These places represent innocence and freedom to him. I think the stolen child represents his brother who died as a child. I also think the descriptions of the farm life is a representation of the control mankind need, where as the fae represent freedom.

| Posted on 2009-10-14 | by a guest

.: :.

I disagree slightly with the analysis above posted on 3/9/2009. I think that this poem is actually about a faery "stealing" a human child. In Celtic lore, Fae would steal human children and replace them with Faery look-alikes. This was a rationalization usually believed when a crisis like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or some other disease took a child's life unexpectedly. Thus, the belief that fae would steal children from the human world and take them to the "Smmerlands" (the land of the magical and the dead) would be enlisted in an effort to rationalize such pains experienced in Celtic culture. This may be incorrect,of course, but this is my interpretation of the W.B. Yeats "The Stolen Child". Posted by Stefany DeVincentis, LMT from Newark, DE.

| Posted on 2009-09-03 | by a guest

.: :.

the poem talk about a fairy (or faery) who tries to convince a child to go with the fairy to a magical world filled with all these wonderful things, ex. the frothy bubbles, the red stolen cherries, the dim grey sands with light, the pools among the rushes.. etc.
as the fairy continues to convince the child to go with them, it also explains why as "the world is more full of weeping than you could possibly understand"
within the last stanza of the poem we learn that the child travels with the faery, and as the child looked away with solemn eyes he will hear no more of the lowering and sing peace into his breast.

| Posted on 2009-03-09 | by a guest