Yeats creates a complex web of meaning in his presentation of landscape in his poem "The Stolen Child." Yeats portrays the past of Ireland as an idyllic landscape that has been warped and changed into a world plagued by turbulence and conflict represented through the supernatural. His use of soft romantic language gives the poem a distinctive fairy-tale like quality but Yeats contrasts these images with the underlying theme of conflict to present his strong view that Ireland is in turmoil. The poem is written in the form of a ballad in which the human child is drawn into the ethereal world of the supernatural as the fairies convince the child that their fantasy world is full of joy while the human world is full of sorrow. .
There is a sense of a strong hypnotic enchantment in "The Stolen Child" and a desire for escape to a form of sanctuary away from the modern world of conflict into an idyllic fairyland. However the negative connotations of the title provide a sense of ensnarement as a sanctuary can also be a prison. Yeats begins with the phrase, "where dips the rocky Highland" to create a sense of the mysterious, with the compressed syntax providing a poetic opening to the poem. Also the mentioning of real places such as "Sleuth wood" adds to the realism of this magical landscape for the fairies and the reader, enabling Yeats to contrast between the human and natural with the world of the supernatural. The addition of real locations is not only significant because of their geographical locations but because of their close relationships with an alternate world of "faery," and the superstition and legends of traditional Irish folklore. .
Yeats' attitude towards this fairyland is ambivalent as he uses a rhythmic refrain in the poem, the imagery of the "wild" landscape is exciting and captivating for the child because it is set apart from all traditional rules of society, but he also believes it meanders from society's security.