Just a little bit of searching

Every time I feel like I need a good cry, I seek out the movie A.I.


It really is a sad movie and it seems like the whole purpose of the film is to make you weepy. So, when everything goes to pot and you can't quite get it out, watching this movie makes it all boil over and hey -- you always feel better after a good cry.

So, I watched it with my sister last night and I noticed that the intro credits said it was based off a short story, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss.
It's an interesting read and accomplishes the same goal as the film (though to much less of an extreme). I'd always figured it was some uber-modern twist to Pinnochio, and if you think about it hazily enough, it is.

And you know those awesome lines that are super powerful in movies that you just have to write down? For half a second you're thinking that the writers are brilliant for coming up with that, then you google it so you can quote it more accurately, only to find out that it's a billion years old.
The poem quoted in A.I.:
Come away, O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild
With a fairy hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than
you can understand.

It's by William Butler Yeats and this is the poem in full:
The Stolen Child

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 fairy vats
Full of berries,
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild
With a fairy 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 farthest 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! O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild,
With a fairy 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;
We give them evil dreams,
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Of dew on the young streams.
Come! O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild,
With a fairy 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 lowin
Of the calves on the warm hill-side.
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 woods and waters wild,
With a fairy hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than
he can understand.

I think they did a pretty dang good job of combining Super-Toys, Pinnochio, and Stolen Child.