Summary

“The Stolen Child” opens upon a natural scene from County Sligo, Ireland, where the “rocky highland / Of Sleuth Wood” (1-2) meets the lake. Within this lake “lies a leafy island” (3) in which herons and water rats play and rest. The fairies who narrate the poem reveal that this island is where “we’ve hid our faery vats” (6), the contents of which include berries and “reddest stolen cherries” (8). The fairies make an invitation to a “human child” (9) to join them in “the waters and the wild” (10), explaining that a fairy will lead the child “hand in hand” (11). They justify taking the child away by telling him that “the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand” (12). The fairies’ invitation to the child will echo like a song’s chorus at the end of each of the poem’s four stanzas.

The second stanza...