An Open Boat

O what is that whimpering there in the darkness?
    "Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know.
Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."--"The sea's rising,
    The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go."

See--quick--by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses,
    The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat,
And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover
    And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat.

"Come, lady, he's dead." "No, I feel his heart beating.
    He's living, I know. But he's numbed with the cold.
See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him"----
    --"No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold.

"Come. Loosen your fingers."--"O God, let me keep him!"
    O, hide it, black night! Let the winds have their way!
For there are no voices or ghosts from that darkness,
    To fret the bare seas at the breaking of day.

Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes was an English poet, short-story writer, and playwright, best known for his ballads, particularly "The Highwayman" (1906). Born on September 16, 1880, in Wolverhampton, he published his first collection of poems, "The Loom of Years," in 1902. His narrative poetry and works often evoked strong imagery and emotion. Noyes also lectured in various universities across the United States. He passed away on June 25, 1958.

Alfred Noyes

Nippon

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

The Lost Battle

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

The Big Black Trawler

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

Princeton

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Dead Ship Of Harpswell

What flecks the outer gray beyond
The sundown's golden trail?
The white flash of a sea-bird's wing,
Or gleam of slanting sail?
Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point,
And sea-worn elders pray,
The ghost of what was once a ship
Is sailing up the bay.

From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!
But many a keel shall seaward turn,
And many a sail outstand,
When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms
Against the dusk of land.

She rounds the headland's bristling pines;
She threads the isle-set bay;
No spur of breeze can speed her on,
Nor ebb of tide delay.
Old men still walk the Isle of Orr
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Michael Oaktree

Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed
Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon
Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

It was the quiet hour before the sun
Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently
Utters his benediction on the waves
That whisper round the death-bed of the day.
The labourers were returning from the farms
And children danced to meet them. From the doors
Of cottages there came a pleasant clink
Where busy hands laid out the evening meal.
From smouldering elms around the village spire
There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks.
The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale
The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh.
The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace,
And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar,
And fr...

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Peace In A Palace

"You were weeping in the night," said the Emperor,
    "Weeping in your sleep, I am told."
"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress;
    But her face grew gray and old.
"You thought you saw our German God defeated?"
    "Oh, no!" she said. "I saw no lightnings fall.
I dreamed of a whirlpool of green water,
    Where something had gone down. That was all.

"All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying,
    Endlessly round and round,
Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness,
    The dreadful rising faces of the drowned.

"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress.
    "I thought I was walking on the sea;
And the foam rushed up in a wild smother,
    And a crowd of little faces looked at me.

They were drowning! They were ...

Alfred Noyes

Wireless

Now to those who search the deep,
    Gleam of Hope and Kindly Light,
Once, before you turn to sleep,
    Breathe a message through the night.
Never doubt that they'll receive it.
Send it, once, and you'll believe it.

Wrecks that burn against the stars,
    Decks where death is wallowing green,
Snare the breath among their spars,
    Hear the flickering threads between,
Quick, through all the storms that blind them,
Quick with words that rush to find them.

Think you these aërial wires
    Whisper more than spirits may?
Think you that our strong desires
    Touch no distance when we pray?
Think you that no wings are flying
'Twixt the living and the dying?

Inland, here, upon your knees,
    You shall breathe from ur...

Alfred Noyes

The Wreck Of The Hesperus

It was the schooner Hesperus,
    That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
    To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
    Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
    That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
    His pipe was in his month,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
    The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
    Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
    For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
    And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
    And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ballad Of The Mad Ladye.

The rowan tree grows by the tower foot,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    Can the dead feel joy or pain?)
And the owls in the ivy blink and hoot,
And the sea-waves bubble around its root,
Where kelp and tangle and sea-shells be,
When the bat in the dark flies silently.
    (Hark to the wind and the rain.)

The ladye sits in the turret alone,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    The dead--can they complain?)
And her long hair down to her knee has grown,
And her hand is cold as a hand of stone,
And wan as a band of flesh may be,
While the bird in the bower sings merrily.
    (Hark to the wind and the rain.)

Sadly she leans by her casement side
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    Can the de...

Kate Seymour Maclean