The Stolen Child

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"The Stolen Child" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, published in 1889 in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.

The poem was written in 1886 and is considered to be one of Yeats' more notable early poems. The poem is based on Irish legend and concerns faeries beguiling a child to come away with them. Yeats had a great interest in pagan Irish legends about faeries resulting in his publication of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry in 1888 and Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland in 1892. The places mentioned in the poem are in Sligo where Yeats spent much of his childhood.

The poem reflects the early influence of Romantic literature and Pre-Raphaelite verse.

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 fairy, hand in hand

For this world's more full of weeping than he can understand

The poem was first published in the Irish Monthly in December 1886. The poem was then published in a compilation of work by several Irish poets Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland in 1888 with several critics praising the poem. It was later published in his first book of poetry The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems as well as Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.

[edit] In popular culture

The poem was set to music and recorded by Loreena McKennitt on her 1985 debut album Elemental. Subsequently, additional musical versions were recorded by the folk rock group The Waterboys, appearing on their 1988 album Fisherman's Blues, with portions of the poem spoken by Tomas McKeown, Heather Alexander on her 1994 album Wanderlust, and Hamilton Camp on his 2005 album Sweet Joy in the song Celts. As far back as 1911, the English composer Cyril Rootham set the poem to music. The renowned American composer Eric Whitacre has also set this poem in a piece for The King's Singers and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.

Keith Donohue's novel, The Stolen Child (Nan A. Talese, 2006) was inspired by the poem. Parts of the poem are prominently featured in Steven Spielberg's film A.I.. The poem is also featured in the television series Torchwood episode "Small Worlds", being spoken by a fairy who steals a young girl.

[edit] References

R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: a Life, Oxford University Press 1998 ISBN 0-19-288085-3 pages 56, 75-76
Richard J Finneran (ed) Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies XII, 1994 ISBN 0-472-10614-7 pages 91-92
Michael Bell, Literature, Modernism and Myth: Belief and Responsibility in the Twentieth Centuries ISBN 0-521-58016-1 pages 44-59
Terence Brown, The Life of W.B. Yeats Blackwell Publishing 2001 ISBN 0-631-22851-9 pages 9, 19, 66
William A. Dumbletone, Ireland: Life and Land in Literature SUNY Press 1994 ISBN 0-87395-783-0 Pages 93-95, 129, 135-138