Where dips the rocky highland / Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, / There lies a leafy island / Where flapping herons wake / The drowsy water rats.”
-- Speaker (Lines 1 – 5)

Importance: These lines open the poem and establish several of its key features. The first word, “Where” (1), will mark the beginning of each of the first three stanzas, and it points to the fundamental importance of setting in “The Stolen Child.” The allusion to Sleuth Wood, Yeats’s name for Slish Wood in County Sligo, is the first of three such allusions to specific areas of Ireland. These lines depict nature as teeming with life and spirit, in part because almost all of the nouns are accompanied by adjectives that make them more vivid: “rocky” (1), “leafy” (3), “flapping” (4), and “drowsy” (5). The alliteration of the “l” sound in “lake” (2), “lies” (3), and “leafy” (3) dovetails with the consonance of the same sound in “highland” (1), “Sleuth” (2), “island” (3), and “flapping” (4), inaugurating the poem...