Happy Saint Patrick's Day from William Butler Yeats, The Waterboys, and Me

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. . . . . . "Come away, human child/to the water, and the wild"



In 1988, the Irish folk-rock group, The Waterboys, released a near perfect album titled "Fisherman's Blues."


As befitting a near perfect record, the album ends with a stunningly beautiful track titled "The Stolen Child."

The song is actually a poem set to music by The Waterboys. The poem was written approximately 100 years earlier by the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

The song almost always makes me teary-eyed, if not flat-out weepy. It's just too damn gorgeous. I have no choice.

There are two videos for your listening/viewing pleasure.

I recommend the first one mainly because it includes the lyrics with the video. There are also some scenic still photos and some pretty cool fantasy artwork:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7YIYQfnreM

However, those of you who are up to your eyeballs in testosterone, and/or have not fully embraced your "inner girlie-man," may prefer the non-fantasy artwork version. It is simply the song with a photo of the album cover as the sole graphic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-oJKYIinQ



The Stolen Child
(W. B. Yeats/The Waterboys)

Come away, human child
to the water
Come away, human child
to the water, and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand

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 berries
and of reddest stolen cherries

Come away, human child
to the water
Come away, human child
to the water, 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 is anxious in it's sleep

Come away, human child
to the water
Come away, human child
to the water, 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
the scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
and whispering in their ears
We give them unquiet dreams;
leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
over the young streams

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
around and around the oatmeal-chest

For he comes, the human child
to the water
He comes, the human child
to the water, and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
from a world more full of weeping than he can understand
than he can understand
than he can understand
than he can understand



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Butler Yeats


. . .. . .Shoot The Crows, a favorite watering hole of W. B. Yeats


. . . . . . .. . . . .I'm pretty sure this is a W. B. Yeats statue


"Come away, human child/to the water, and the wild/. . . for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand"







[photos, Ireland 1995 - a special thanks to Mark, the only person who could have gotten me there]
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