The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #3113   Message #15303
Posted By: Susan-Marie
27-Oct-97 - 01:09 PM
Thread Name: Halloween Songs [1]
Subject: Lyr Add: STOLEN CHILD (W.B. Yeats, L McKennitt)^^
After reading the words to the Elf King, I was reminded of Loreena McKennitt's arrangement of Yeat's Poem "Stolen Child" on her album "Elemental". Similar story, less sinister rendering:

STOLEN CHILD

Lyrics by W.B. Yeats; music by Loreena McKennitt

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 fairy vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.

CHORUS
Come away oh 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 grey sands with light
By far off 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
Whilst the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.

CHORUS

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above glen car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce 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.

CHORUS

Away with us he's going
The solemned eyed
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace unto his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.

CHORUS(last time)
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 you can understand.