The Stolen Child (Poem) Summary
William Butler Yeats

The Stolen Child (Poem) Overview

“The Stolen Child” is a four-stanza ballad-like poem by the Irish poet and occultist William Butler Yeats. One of Yeats’s earliest works, the poem was first published in the December 1886 edition of the Irish Monthly magazine and was subsequently included in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, Yeats’s first collection of poetry published in 1889. Rooted in both the geography and the mythology of Ireland, the poem engages with deeper questions about grief and loss. It is thus a haunting early representation of many of the themes that would define Yeats’s career, including mysticism and Irish nationalism.