In memory of the children of Beslan.
The Stolen Child
by 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 the reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, human child
to the water.
Come away, 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.
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
Chasing frothy bubbles
while the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, human child
to the water.
Come away, 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
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
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 watch 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 waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
from a world more full of weeping than he can understand.
Human child
Human child
With a faery, hand in hand
from a world more full of weeping than he can understand…
than he can understand…
he can understand…