Ch 28 – Poems and analysis

“The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats

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 berrys
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
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand

In the poem The Stolen Child, Yeats tells of the enticing of a human child to join the fairies. The child is not actually stolen, but is seduced away . The fairies enchant him with tales of their world, and the child forgets his family and his life and goes with them. The human world, they tell him, is full of weeping, but only magic and adventure exists in theirs.

The describe the pleasures he will have, of magical journeys to towns and lakes and beaches. Then they take him to a waterfall, not to catch trout but to tease them, whispering to them from the branches of ferns that arch out over the water. Perhaps the child drowns here or the stream carries him off. But that is open to your interpretation.

In any case, they persuade him to come away with them, away from the warmth and comforts of humans, to join the faeries. His mother will weep for him, but he is far too young to understand what he has lost.

“Dragonfly Chaser” by Chiyo-ni

I wonder in what field today
He chases dragonflies in play
My little boy, who ran away.
—  a popular translation

“The Dragonfly Chaser” — a haiku by Chiyo (and yes, I’d be willing to bet that’s where Kishimoto drew his inspiration for his Chiyo), one of Japan’s best known female haiku poets. It is written from the pov of the mother, wondering where her child has gotten off too. It reflects that heartbreaking moment where, in the stillness of a home after the loss of her son, the mother wonders, as she is so used to doing, where the little boy has gotten off to. In the very next instant, after the poem’s end, she realizes he’s gone. (Sort of like waking from a dream and not knowing for a fraction-of-a-second which is real – the dream life or the real life. ) So, in a single poem it ties together both instances, both realities: For that moment, he was still alive to her, and just off playing in another field. At the same time the lines affirm that yes, he is still chasing dragonflies, but it is another place where she cannot go. I thought this was appropriate for this chapter because this is the little window into Naruto’s life before he leaves the village. He doesn’t die, but he will never be that same child again. And the playful, sweet boy will never grow up in those fields, but will move on to run and play in other ones.