The other day poet Renee LaTulippe asked fellow bloggers on Facebook to suggest scary poems that she might perform for her site, No Water River, as Halloween approaches. Many good poems were suggested - though the best were probably too long (Edgar Allen Poe) for the video she had in mind. I suggested "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti - too long, yes, but it starts so well and gets so creepy! Just this morning, I remembered Yeats's "The Stolen Child" which gives me goosebumps every time I read it. I think it's too late to suggest it to Renee, but I do think it's unnerving. Scary? Well, it scares me! Especially because the fairies who steal this child don't just steal the child, but they convince him or her to leave the world behind because it is "more full of weeping" than can be understood. The poem worries me, it scares me, haunts me, breaks my heart. Oh, to write a poem like this, but for a modern child....that would be a challenge!
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.
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. - See more
at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19415#sthash.xLQAB7Ox.dpuf
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. - See more
at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19415#sthash.xLQAB7Ox.dpuf
Here's a link to a beautiful musical rendition of the poem by Loreena McKennitt.
I was thinking about Yeats today, too. I'm not sure I ever thought of this poem as creepy, but it isn't very cheery, either. Loreena McKennitt's musical version is haunting, though, especially with those dogs barking in the background. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm easily creeped out, Catherine! I think those ferns crying, and the unquiet dreams and the dancing all night, kind of obsessive, frantic...I don't know...the whole un-humanness of it is unnerving, and then all of humanity weeping, too - ooh. Nightmares. Though it's a beautiful poem, definitely.
ReplyDeleteIs this a 'changeling' scenario, where a faery switches places with a human child. I read a book on this recently, in order to be clearer as to what a changeling was. In any case, I like it a lot!
ReplyDeleteOooh....good one, Julie. Like Catherine, I find this more sad than creepy. But then BJ's question about the changeling scenario would bring a creepy element for sure.
ReplyDeleteI haven't decided yet on my Halloween poem! I'm going for short, though, and jack-o-lanterns. :)
I have almost all of Loreena McKennitt's songs, but i haven't heard of this one yet. Yes, it made me feel sad as well. World of weeping. Crying ferns. Heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll be repeating what you said in the comments, Julie. Yeats obviously sought to make us shiver, or he shivered himself, and added the dark side instead of light, as in "ferns that drop their tears". I often wondered how it might change one to grow up hearing about fairies in the wood. I have a friend from Norway who grew up hearing of all the magic that appeared in the night & she is scared of the dark. Thanks for sharing, and the music too!
ReplyDeleteI find it so interesting that this poem is calling the child away from the world, yet Yeats captures the beauty of the world of nature so flawlessly, with such resonance. If I were that kid, I don't think I'd go!
ReplyDelete