The Stolen Child

RE dips the rocky

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy

Where flapping herons

The drowsy water-rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away,

O human child!

To the waters and the

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than youcan understand.

Where the wave of moonlight

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away,

O human child!

To the waters and the

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than youcan understand.

Where the wandering water

From the hills above Glen-Car,.

In pools among the

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering

And whispering in their

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly

From ferns that drop their

Over the young streams.

Come away,

O human child!

To to waters and the

With a faery, hand in hand,

For to world's more full of weeping than youcan understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the

Of the calves on the warm

Or the kettle on the

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For be comes, the human child,

To the waters and the

With a faery, hand in hand,from a world more full of weeping than youcan understand.

First published December 1886 in the Irish Monthly.

Furthest Rosses near Sligo is famous for it's Fairies.

There is here a little point of rocks where, if anyone should fall to sleep, there is danger of them waking silly, the fairies having carried off their souls. (Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasentry 1888)