When I was in college, I heard this song for the first time. Mike Scott of the Irish band, The Waterboys, wrote the lyrics, based on a poem by William Butler Yeats.
All these years later, I’ve not read much Yeats — though he’s on my reading list ! — for sure though, I soak up the Irish spirit every time I hear the song, and read these words.
On this Saint Patrick’s Day, I celebrate the spirit, and share these words…
Stolen Child
by Michael Scott, 1988
based on poem by William Butler Yeats
Come away, human child
to the water
Come away, human child
to the water and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand
for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand
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 fairy vats
Full of berries
and of reddest stolen cherries
Come away, human child
to the water
Come away, human child
to the water and the wild
With a fairy, 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 is anxious in its sleep
Come away, human child
to the water
Come away, human child
to the water and the wild
With a fairy, 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
the scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
and whispering in their ears
We give them unquiet dreams;
leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
over the young streams
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
Around and around the oatmeal-chest
For he comes, the human child
To the water
He comes, the human child
To the water and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand
Human child
Human child
With a fairy, hand in hand
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand…
Than he can understand…
He can understand…
And here’s the tune, in case you’d like to hear it:
