- 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
scare 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.
-
-William Butler Yeats