On September 30, 1999, five years ago today, Matthew Deneau Hyndman came into our lives … and left. Matthew was stillborn after Nicky carried him (almost) to full term. The day remains the worst in our lives and we can only hope that our loss of Matthew will endure as our biggest personal tragedy. Time and life have dulled the intensity of the emotions from five years ago, but Matthew keeps an important place in our hearts and our lives. Nicky and I will always think of him as our second child. And Alex and Abby know of him and have some small sense of the loss (a very small sense: they’re 4 and 6). My lack of any real creative ability limits my avenues for expression to my small knack for discovering and selecting music appropriate to an occasion or audience. To deal with our loss of Matthew and to share my grief with family and friends I put together a CD at the time, Dear Matthew. One of the songs on the CD was The Stolen Child, the poem by WB Yeats, beautifully put to music by The Waterboys. The poem was read when we spread Matthew’s ashes at the point in front of our family cottage in Keppoch.
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 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
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep
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
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, 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.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
Lately I’ve been listening to another song that makes me think of Matthew, Ben Harper’s Amen Omen. I’ll make it
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
to share with family and friends.
We love you, Matthew.
