The Stolen Child -- Original Composition by Angeluomo

This is one of my original compositions based upon the poem by W.B. Yeats "The Stolen Child". The Picture is of the Glencar in County Leitrim. I have produced guitar and vocal tracks (including the harmony parts in the chorus). Hope you enjoy. Naturally, this is all copyrighted. Here are the lyrics:

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, O 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 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 anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O 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 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.
Come away, O 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.

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
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
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 he can understand.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Angeluomo
• Original
• Composition
• Guitar
• Vocals
• Yeats
• The
• Stolen
• Child
• Lake
• Isle
• Innisfree
• Ireland
• folk
• music
• county
• sligo

[katspalace]

love your version!

[angeluomo]

@katspalace Thanks. I appreciate your comment!

[angeluomo]

@adyseven1 Hi -- Thanks for the correction. I should have known that, since I have actually been to the Lake Isle of Innisfree before. The photo I heisted somehow indicated that it was Innisfree. Anyway, if it is Glencar, then it still fits the song, since that is also part of the poem. Hope you liked the song.

[adyseven1]

@angeluomo the image is not innishfree but of Glencar co Leitrim. Yeats country approx 200 miles from Kerry.a big distance in a small land !

[angeluomo]

@stuross74 Thanks for your comments. I will have to listen to the waterboys version. I don't know it.

[stuross74]

@angeluomo great skill to put this to music in the way you have. the waterboys version is very different but complete magic i think

[angeluomo]

No, this is my version. Listen to both (hers and mine): they are quite different. My version comfortably pre-dates Loreena's version, as I wrote mine back in 1980 (thirty years ago). Also, my version includes the third stanza from Yeats's poem, which she does not. Hope you liked it! Loreena sings much better than I do; and I can't play the harp.

[unterkuehlt]

originally it's from loreena mckennit, isn't it?

[angeluomo]

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[Fenshae]

...I think this might be my favorite musical arrangement of this poem I've heard yet.